Guess Who's Coming to Dinner
by JannP
Summary: Finn and Rachel just started dating, so they're kicking the summer off by properly meeting one another's family.  What could possibly go wrong?  Could all be part of canon, just missing scenes from early in their summer.
1. Chapter 1

_**A/N: **__I'm in need of some cuter, happy Rachel/Finn interaction. So I got to wondering how their parents would really react to them dating. Given the disaster of 'meet the parents' that was Finn/Quinn, I wondered how it would go for Finn this next time around. I'm not assuming they had never actually met, just assuming everyone was looking for it to change once the dating started. This will most likely be two, maybe three parts. Enjoy! Oh, also—don't look shocked. I'm writing it without major swear words. _

_**Disclaimer: **__I don't own Glee. But if Finn or Puck are ever for sale…well, I'd probably even take Jesse._

* * *

**Guess Who's Coming to Dinner**

Finn cast a bemused smirk at his girlfriend. It was the last day of school today, and had been an absolutely rockin' sort of day. They had gotten final news that glee club wouldn't be cancelled and it was followed up with Mr. Schue's wish that they have a good summer _off_. The three months stretched before Finn like some perfect, magical time and it had everything to do with the girl who was laying next to him on the blanket at the municipal park. After school had officially let out, last bell rung and yearbooks signed, they had come here for lunch and decided to stay a while. They had laid back on the blanket, watching the clouds drift by. Stretched out on that blanket in the fresh air with sunshine all around, it seemed like nothing could go wrong.

He just wished she would shut up and enjoy it.

But no; she was the girl who planned everything out, in great detail and as far ahead as possible. Finn didn't exactly care, but he was reasonably sure she had already figured out what they were doing each and every day of the summer. For now he was glad to be along for the ride, but she was talking about so many details he had long ago stopped listening because he couldn't keep up.

He refocused his ears on the sound of her voice and smiled.

"—and I think if we want a strong showing at Sectionals we're really going to have to focus on our mashups because we do so well with those but we can make them even better and I think if we were to pair your classic rock recommendations with my showtunes we could make something truly spectacular—"

He sighed. His sophomore year of high school had been so hard. If someone would've asked him a few short months ago where he imagined himself at this moment, he would've been at a total loss. He had been scrambling to get his grades up, even though they were already decent, because he wanted a football scholarship so badly. He had always wanted one, but once his girlfriend had squeaked out one heart-stopping word, the want had turned into a desire so intense he couldn't do anything but keep his eye on the target.

Kind of the way he'd ended up feeling about the chatterbox laying next to him. Not the same girlfriend, by the way.

But then it had been ripped away from him, and it had taken him a while to actually feel grateful for the second chance. It was a new beginning for him and this summer felt like the great big breath before the fresh start. He looked over at Rachel. She was still talking, totally unaware that he'd stopped listening about an hour ago. She was the breath of fresh air for him. He would never forget how special she was to him, even if she was a little bit high-strung. Maybe he could try to get her drunk this summer. That would loosen her up a little bit and it felt good for him to have some kind of a goal.

"—and then they said you can't come over at all until they've met you."

Oh, crap. Back the bus up. He'd missed something. He pulled an arm out from under his head and flipped it over to tickle the forearm she had long ago stretched out. She'd been idly pinching the material of his shirt the whole time she was talking. Now he chose to make contact as he came back down from daydreaming in the clouds and his finger traced a random shape. He was aiming for a football, but he was sure she wouldn't guess what it was. Anyway, he'd missed something.

"Wait. What?"

"My dads invited you over for Shabbat dinner on Friday night after Daddy finishes at temple," she said brightly.

He rolled his head over to look at her with wide-eyed horror. "No way!"

She gave a patient little sigh and looked over at him. "It won't be so bad. And then you'll have...mostly...unlimited visiting privileges for the rest of the summer."

"It won't be so bad," he repeated in a dry, ominous voice before continuing on. "Did you hear the awesome story about the last time I met my girlfriend's parents? It ended with her getting kicked out and coming to live with me and my mom."

Rachel laughed at the look his face. "Well, this will be totally different. I promise." She turned her head back up to look at the sky again. "Because I'm pretty sure you won't be bursting out in song to reveal my pregnancy."

He groaned. "Not cool," he said in a low growl.

"Well, it's still true," she sighed. "I have no doubt everything will go well. They have no reason _not_ to love you, Finn. I love you. So I'm sure they will love you."

He dropped his head again and looked at her, no longer able to resist kissing her. They were still figuring all this stuff out, so there was always that awkward moment right before they kissed when they both knew it was going to happen but their hearts weren't beating and they were holding their breath. It was even weirder when they were laying down. But it was still kissing so it still felt good, and he was still brushing his fingertips over her arm and she was sighing about it.

He pulled away and looked at her thoughtfully. "You should come to dinner Friday night with my family, too. We usually eat earlier than you."

He saw her throat move as she gulped. "Now that is not such a good idea."

Finn wrapped her hand up in his hand, his hand like a burrito around hers because she was so little. He dragged her hand up to his mouth and placed a whisper-light kiss on the bottom of her thumb. "And why not?"

"I make a terrible first impression," she sighed. "And won't Kurt be there? Kurt hates me."

"I don't think Kurt really hates you that much. He and his dad are too busy wishing they could kill me with their eyes to hate you. You'll be a welcome distraction," he concluded. He hoped he was being enticing.

"How about this?" She said, sitting up beside him and propping her head up on her elbow. "How about you come to dinner at my house and then we make an excuse and come right back here to make out for a while?"

"No," he said quickly. His eyes darted off to the side and then back to her. "How about we go to my stupid family dinner, then go to your stupid family dinner, then I take you out on a date."

She looked away. "My curfew is early on Fridays."

"Okay, then I will take you out Saturday. All day. We'll go to that drive in over in Dayton and then we can make out during a double feature in the back of my truck."

She collapsed back onto her back and sighed dramatically. "Okay, so double dinner Friday, double movie Saturday…" she rolled her head back toward him.

"Mmm-hmm…" he murmured in agreement. He flopped back down onto the blanket, sucking up some more of the warm sunshine. He kept her hand clasped in his and closed his eyes. It was safe to say—life was good. Finn Hudson loved summer almost as much as he loved Christmas.

Loving the girl a little more than Christmas or even summer was the main reason he was pacing around his room nervously two days later. What in the hell did you wear to meet two gay dads of the girl you sometimes pictured naked while you were in the shower? He groaned to himself. Let's not go there just yet.

"Finn?" His mom asked, knocking lightly on the door. He didn't even know she was here. Things had been really awkward since his falling out with Kurt. Even though the two boys had somewhat figured things out at school , it hadn't crossed over to home life. Carole was disappointed in her son, but hadn't resigned herself to the fact that he was a total idiot. She had moved in with Burt Hummel anyway and, as far as Finn knew, was having the time of her life. While he was sleeping in his totally barren room, all furniture moved and then his invitation to use it denied, on a worn-out navy blue sleeping bag on the floor. At least they'd let him stay at the empty house that was still for sale, he guessed, and he was still allowed to drive the small, old pickup truck. And apparently his mom was coming to check on him. Yeah, that did a lot to help with the sting of abandonment.

"Yeah?" He asked, turning around. "Oh, hi."

"Oh, hi," she said. She offered a brief smile. "What are you doing?"

The corner of his mouth twitched and he put his hands on his hips. "Trying to figure out what to wear to dinner."

Carole's eyebrows scrunched together. "Do you need to wear something special this time?"

"Well, not just our dinner. I'm going to dinner with Rachel and her dads after our dinner."

"_Oh." _ Carole said, her voice heavy and her eyes hesitant.

"What?" He asked; he was already annoyed with the whole damn unfair situation every time he came home. It felt wrong to hope their house wouldn't sell quickly so he could have somewhere to sleep. It felt wrong that his mom didn't live here anymore and the house looked like a ghost town. It felt wrong that he had been blamed for the entire frickin' thing and Kurt had gotten off like he was totally innocent _when he wasn't_. And it annoyed him that everything around him was changing so fast he couldn't keep up and no one cared and things just kept changing. The only thing going right or well in his life right now was everything with Rachel and he didn't want that to come crashing down around him because he didn't find the right tie.

Could ties really change your life?

"Well…it's just…I thought we had talked about you taking the summer off from everything," she started slowly. "You have some bridges to rebuild."

"Okay, first of all, we haven't talked about anything because you don't even live here anymore," he started. Pacing resumed. "Second of all, I didn't exactly plan all this out with Rachel, but she's awesome and I love her and that's the end of that. So yeah, I'm going to be with her." He dropped his head and his voice, sounding more hurt than angry on the last part. "And third of all, who says I want to rebuild anything?"

"Can you honestly tell me that you like the way things are with our family?" She asked slowly.

"What family?" He asked angrily. "You know, I thought it was all going to be okay and I thought I could get along with Burt and with Kurt and…" he shook his head. "But I'm not and it's not and no."

"_Finn_…" she protested, her voice soft and full of concern and motherly worry.

"Look, I'm playing along like the good son, okay? I know you want to be happy and you want this whole other family. You like to go shopping with Kurt and you like living with Burt because you love him." He blew out a long breath. "But I don't like it. I'll do what you ask, but I'm not doing any more."

"Well that's a fantastic attitude," she said. Her voice was unsteady and she was looking at him like he was a total stranger.

"Mom…"

"You know, I think maybe we'll skip the family dinner tonight. Or at least, we'll just have the people that are invested in having a family," she said calmly, and then she turned to leave. "By the way, there are two bids on the house. I'm guessing it will be sold by the end of the month so you need to figure out what you're going to do."

Then she was gone and he was alone and he was mad and he kicked the wall. Hard enough to leave a hole. He wondered if that would help the house sell any faster. Finally, he sighed and grabbed his keys and his phone, Rachel's number already ringing through against his ear as he walked out of the house.

Rachel frowned as she hung up the phone. She had just barely gotten home from her 2:30 dance class, wasn't even completely through the door when he called. He sounded really mad. He sounded really sad and just all around upset. Half of what he had rambled hadn't even made total sense to her, but she'd heard the last part, the begging part, loud and clear—could he come over?

He was already on his way. He did live on the other side of town, but even in a town like Lima that was no more than 15 minutes. She looked down at herself and sighed before she slogged off for a quick shower. They had only been together for about two weeks, but this felt important and she desperately hoped she could be ready and could fulfill an important obligation as a girlfriend. Not that providing friendship, support, and comfort was an obligation, exactly. She wanted to do it. She was honored he had called her.

She was out of the shower and at least dressed, having reserved a polo shirt dress for Shabbat dinner. While she rarely went to the services, she attempted to dress extra-conservatively. At the same time it was summer and it was hot.

She sighed and tugged her hair off her neck. Her Daddy would be home soon, as Friday was the day he left early so he could prepare for Shabbat. Maybe she should at least let him know Finn was coming. It seemed only responsible and in the spirit of compromise. She picked up her phone with her free hand and dialed.

"Hello," his voice sang out as he enabled the Bluetooth device. Her Daddy's voice had always been soothing to her despite its thicker-than-average nasality. She smiled a little. It wasn't that he was overly strict with her, but it was helpful that he was in a good mood.

"Hi, Daddy," she said breezily. "How was your day?"

"Hi, Angel," he said. "So far, so good. To what do I owe the pleasure of your call? I'll be home in about ten minutes."

She heard the soft knock at the door and moved down the stairs.

"Well, I had a special request," she said. "Finn called me a little bit ago and he sounded really upset. He has some issues going on with his family and… I know you're not home just yet but would it be permissible for him to come over?"

"Sweetie, we talked about this. Me and your dad really need to get know him better before he's allowed to be alone in the house with you."

"I absolutely understand and he is, as far as I know, planning to stay for dinner," she corrected. She pulled the door open and then held up her index finger for Finn before she pressed it into her ear and turned away from him.

"Okay, well…I suppose if he needs a friend, I will allow it this once," he agreed. "You're a good friend, sweetheart."

"I'm not sure about that but I do try," she said weakly. She looked up at Finn. He was standing in the entryway, having only been to her house about three times previously, obviously feeling awkward now.

"That's all you can do," he said agreeably. "I will see you shortly."

"Okay, I love you," she said and bit her lip. She could feel her cheeks flush a little, standing there in front of Finn, saying the words in an entirely different context.

"I love you, too," Hiram added before he hung up. Rachel pulled the phone away from her ear and dropped her wet hair before she looked up at Finn. He looked so sad it threatened to break her heart. She hadn't seen him for a couple of days, since they hung out at the park after school, and it looked like the time hadn't been good to him. He wasn't smiling and his eyes were missing their usual glint.

"Hi," she said, letting her eyes look over him worriedly.

"Hi," he breathed. He really wanted to pull her against him. Her hair was still wet and he wondered what it smelled like before she did all that crap girls do. He wondered if it smelled like normal or if it smelled stronger. She had refused to tell him exactly what she used or what it smelled like, so he had lumped it into the vague "her" that made up everything he loved.

But he wasn't sure if he should hug her. He only knew that he wanted to. So he stood there and just stared for a long minute.

She finally reached out and took his hand. Her hand was cool as she pressed it into his, and it helped him calm down a little. He took a deep breath and let her lead him up to her bedroom. He noticed she left the door open, but didn't question her about it. He was kind of surprised she had agreed to see him almost three hours early.

He sat down on her bed and groaned as he sank in. Beds were so comfortable. He missed having a bed.

She frowned as she watched him. Something was most definitely wrong but he hadn't said more than one word. She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror on her vanity and frowned. Her hair was starting to go all wavy and she needed to do something with it if she were to have any hope of controlling it. Given that they were supposed to meet his family tonight, she didn't want to look any less than perfectly groomed.

"So what's up?" She finally asked as she poked at her eye. He was laying on her bed with his eyes closed.

"I think I want to break up with my mom," he said simply. "Isn't that something you can actually do? Like you get a lawyer and just…"

She turned toward him, hands grasping the edge of the vanity and leaned against it. "Well, yes. It's called emancipation. But why would you want to do that? Your mom is wonderful and I know that because you've said so yourself."

Finn sighed. He hadn't admitted any of what went down to her. He didn't want her to know. It made him sound like such a douchebag. "It's a long story. My bigger problem is with Burt and Kurt and I think my mom is going to marry his dad and everything is just messed up."

She nodded as she moved to the bed to take his hand as she watched him closely. "I'm afraid I don't understand. Start at the beginning."

His eyes fluttered closed. "Okay, well…I guess it all started when Kurt set my mom and his dad up at Parent Teacher Conferences. The next thing I knew, my mom started changing everything. She was giving away furniture and cutting her hair and…it made me really mad, but she just got mad back and she told me she was sick of just getting by and she wanted a partner. So I tried really hard to get along with Burt, and it was okay. He took me to a couple of pro games and we like the same sports and stuff so we at least had something in common.

But Kurt was being really, really pushy. He kept saying all this weird stuff and finally I got it after me and you broke up—he was coming on to me."

Rachel's eyes widened. "But you're straight."

"Yeah, and I told him to back off," he confirmed. "But you know how Kurt is. Backing off isn't his style. So when Burt asked my mom and me to move in with him, Kurt was totally stoked about it and redecorated the whole bedroom, the one that we would have to share, like it was from a catalogue or something."

Rachel looked around her room a little. It was kind of hard to imagine Finn living somewhere like that.

"And I kinda lost it. And Burt heard, but he only heard the part where I told Kurt all the stuff he'd put up was 'faggy.'" Rachel winced. "So he kicked me out because he said it wasn't okay for me to talk to his son that and way and he thought I was different but that I was just another idiot."

"Finn,I –I…" She never struggled for words, but she had no idea what to say. She had considered him her friend, someone she was supposed to be close to and part of a small group at that; but she'd had no idea any of that had happened to him. She wondered how much of it had happened while she was so confused and messed up with Jesse St. James. And she knew she hadn't mentioned much of anything about Shelby and she definitely understood how he'd felt and why he hadn't said anything. Then again, if he was using demeaning slurs like that when he spoke without thought, maybe it was better he hadn't mentioned anything sooner.

"I didn't want to tell you," he said. "You never say the wrong words. You always say what you mean and I don't and…" he gave a sigh. "But now I'm just so mad."

"So what happened?" she asked slowly, squeezing his hand and hoping it gave him a little bit of reassurance that he wasn't alone. There was someone in the world who knew him and who understood and who cared about him. He squeezed back so it seemed like he knew.

"So my mom moved in with him as planned and I'm still sleeping at our old house until it sells. And then I don't know."

"But I thought you and Kurt were getting along better."

"We are a little, I guess. I don't think it's going to change any over the summer because we're just avoiding each other," he admitted. She watched his Adam's apple bob in his throat. "But my mom has all these plans and she wants me to fix the bridges or whatever, and I don't want to."

"What?" Rachel asked, reaching out her other hand to smooth over the arm she was clutching at the end of. As she shifted, it left her leg dangling over the edge of the bed. She heard the mechanical start to the garage door that was right below her room. She knew she should move so her dad didn't get the wrong impression, but at this moment comforting him seemed more important. He was trying really hard not to fall apart. She could just tell.

The image of 'being there' for someone flashed through her head. This is what it looked like. She couldn't change that, even if her dad would think she was sitting too close to Finn.

"My mom wants me to tell them it was all my fault so maybe Burt will stop thinking I'm poison and let me move into his house."

She frowned. "He called you _poison_? How is that any better than what you said?"

His voice grew unsteady. "I don't know. I didn't call Kurt anything. I was just frustrated because he keeps looking at me like I'm naked and it really freaked me out and then he…"

Rachel nodded in understanding. "He seems to sometimes try using his differences to his advantage. He likes to play the victim."

"Yes," Finn said, his voice stronger and glad someone understood.

"So did he just stand there while Burt was yelling at you?"

"He stood there and cried," Finn summed up.

"Well, I can certainly understand why you're so angry. I'm sorry this happened to you," she said simply. She squeezed his hand again and he squeezed back, their shared grip so tight now that a couple of her fingers were starting to go numb. But it felt okay.

"Rachel?" Her dad interrupted, standing in the doorway and looking hesitant.

"Hi, Daddy," she said. Her voice was less chipper than it had been during her greeting on the phone, but she immediately released Finn's hand, hopped off the bed and approached him to place a kiss on his cheek with a hand on his arm to help her balance.

"Hi." His glance diverted to her bed and back, barely taking in the tall boy that was sitting up and watching them. "I wasn't aware you would be sitting on your bed."

She sighed and looked up at him. "Do you trust me?"

"Of course."

She smiled. "Good. I'm very trustworthy," she said, earning a chuckle. "I swear I will leave the door open the whole time we're in here." She looked over her shoulder at Finn and lowered her voice.

"He's having some problems with his family. He's been sleeping on a sleeping bag in an empty house. I think he might need a nap."

Hiram fixed a stern glance on her. "That's fine and well, but we have a fully furnished guest room downstairs for that. Let me talk it over with your dad and we'll see if he can spend the night down there. And you can sleep with your door locked. Okay?"

She laughed a little and shook her head. "Well, that would be a compromise."

He kissed her forehead and then looked to the boy who was still watching them and looking a little like a deer in headlights. "And Finn, I presume?"

Finn just nodded, not trusting his voice not to crack or his palms not to be sweating. It seemed safer to sit still and stick with wordless answers. Words always got him in trouble anyway.

"I'm Hiram Berry. Welcome to our home. We'll take care of the more formal interrogation at dinner."

Rachel gave him an annoyed look as Finn's eyes got impossibly large. He didn't say anything, and the combined reaction made Hiram laugh as he turned to go.

"I'm going to go start our preparations."

"Oh!" Rachel said, her voice perking up as if she had forgotten. "I already prepared the bread. I started dinner in the Crock Pot this morning, and I did most of the house cleaning before my dance class. I think all we need to do is set the appliances and the table."

He nodded. "Thank you, sweetheart."

"You're welcome, Daddy."

Finn was looking at her curiously when she turned back to him.

"Okay, I didn't understand anything except for I think your dad was trying to kill me with his eyes."

"My Daddy is not scary," she insisted. "He's very gentle, I promise."

"Your boyfriend has a different point of view."

She laughed and rested her hand on his leg. "As for the rest of it, I just help him follow Shabbat customs. My dad won't be home from work until after Daddy is gone to services, and we'll eat dinner as soon as he gets home. The compromise for my not going to the service is that I usually clean the house and prepare the dinner. Oh, and I have to be here when they light the candles."

"What candles?"

"You'll see," she promised. She squeezed his thigh and he put his hand on top of hers. "Back to you."

His eyes drifted over her upturned face. He knew her well enough to know she wasn't going to let it go. Once she had something on her mind, it was fact. "I think I told you everything."

"Okay," she said. She turned her head a little and composed her thoughts before she plowed straight ahead, the only way she knew how. "Here's what I think." His mouth quirked up in a smile, and she matched it with her own. "I think you're denying yourself some important opportunities here."

"Like what?"

"Well, has your mom ever said you could just have everything your way? Any way you want it?" She said, using the words from the Journey song on purpose.

"No."

"And has life ever taught you that? Or is it more of a 'can't always get what you want' sort of lesson?"

"Rachel, this isn't glee club," he said firmly. He could see what she was doing and it was a little annoying.

"Fine. I think you need to sit down and force them to hear you out. You aren't totally innocent in the situation, and it isn't fair for you to be held responsible for any more than your own words. You should agree to try avoiding demeaning speech in the future if they will agree to try and address your concerns instead of ignoring them and plowing ahead with everything."

The entire solution was handed to him in less than fifteen seconds of her speaking and his jaw dropped a little bit. First off, how could one tiny person possibly say all that in one breath? And second of all, how was she so smart she could figure out a fair, if not totally comfortable, solution?

"Will you go tell them that?"

She shook her head. "No. But I'll go sit by you while you do."

He sighed and looked down at his lap, at their hands twisted together on his leg. "I'm not really invited to their 'family' dinner. I'm not part of them."

"Give me your phone," she said simply. She held her free hand out.

"Rachel, I don't want to be part of them," he admitted. His eyes fell closed again.

"Why? Because your feelings are hurt? Because your pride took a hit?"

"Yes!" He said strongly. "That's exactly why."

"Think about your mom," she said softly. "You told me your mom is awesome. Why is she awesome?"

He was quiet for a long time and when he spoke his voice was small. "Because she's my mom. She does everything for me. She's given up everything for me."

Rachel nodded. "So maybe it's time you give something in return. It won't be easy, but maybe that's what you need to do to save a relationship that's important to you. Do you want to hurt your mom?"

He swallowed, surprised at how sharply her gentle words stabbed him in the stomach. He shook his head.

"I'm sure that's what you're doing," she said softly. "So give me your phone and I'll see if I can help you fix it." She held her hand out again. He reached into his pocket and pulled it out, still gripping her hand tightly with his other hand. He pulled his hand back.

"What if I can't do what they want? What if I screw up again? What if they screw up again?"

She looked at him, her wide-eyed, gentle gaze enough to break his heart if it weren't already broken. "Then we start over. You apologize, you ask them to apologize, and go back to the start."

"It's just not that simple."

She tilted her head. "Isn't that kind of what we did?" He smiled a little in response and she continued. "It seems to be going well, don't you think?"

He leaned down and gave her a soft kiss, all of his hesitance gone from when he first walked in the door. It wasn't awkward and it wasn't hard and sometimes it felt like they were off to a really good start.

Rachel just put her hand in the middle of his chest and pushed him back on the bed with a smile before she took his phone and went into her bathroom. "Get some rest!" She said over her shoulder.

Once inside, she turned to her phone. She had met Finn's mother a few times but it was never one-on-one and even though this was a phone call, it still held all the importance of their first meeting. She kind of already knew she was probably going to embarrass herself.

She found the contact labeled simply "Mom" and selected the mobile number before she pressed the phone to her ear even as she looked at her reflection in the mirror. It wasn't that she was nervous, exactly. She usually cared very little for the opinions of others, but she knew this was important to Finn and she only hoped she could broker some sort of an agreement.

"Finn?" His mom answered, her voice nothing more than a hopeful squeak.

"I'm sorry, no Mrs. Hudson. This is Rachel Berry."

There was a sniffle and something obviously brushed against the phone. "But you have his phone?"

"Yes," Rachel confirmed. "He's here at my house and he's very upset."

"He isn't the only one," Mrs. Hudson said defensively.

"I'm sure he's not," Rachel began. "I was hoping that Finn and I could both join your family for dinner tonight to try working things out."

"Finn doesn't _want_ to work things out."

"He does," Rachel said, looking down at the countertop and running her fingernail along the thin groove of grout between two of the cream-colored tiles. "At least with you. I'm not sure he's interested in the others, and I'm know he isn't certain how to proceed. But he'd like to try, so I told him I would call you and ask."

There was a long pause. "I need to talk to Burt. Can I call you back?"

Rachel's heart fell. She had imagined it would go much more smoothly than that. "That would be fine."

"Okay, bye," Mrs. Hudson offered. Rachel hung up and then turned his phone uncertainly. She clicked the volume button the side until the volume on his ringer was turned all the way up, half afraid of what she would hear over her blow dryer when his mother called back.

She quickly turned to start getting herself ready. Her hair had halfway dried and was such a disaster she ended up styling it more curled than her normal silky straight style. As she ran her fingers over the waves, she thought maybe she could use her first change of hairstyle since the age of eight. She just about jumped out of her skin when the OSU fight song blared from his phone while she was applying her eyeliner.

She rolled her eyes. She should've known. She wondered briefly what ringtone he had set for her. If she was his girlfriend, she automatically earned the right to set her own ringtone. The possibilities were endless. She would have to at least consider it.

She picked up the phone and flipped it open. "Hello?"

"Rachel?" Mrs. Hudson asked. Her voice sounded much more composed.

"Hi, Mrs. Hudson."

"Please call me Carole," she said. "Burt said dinner would be okay. Kurt isn't coming with us tonight anyway so that might be better."

Rachel frowned. "I think Finn and Kurt are doing as well as could be expected," she said slowly.

"I don't," Carole said flatly. "Finn is going to have to do a lot better."

Her tone made Rachel scowl against the sense of injustice she could feel flaring in her chest. "Have you even listened to Finn's side of the story? Kurt made numerous advances toward him that persisted despite rejection."

"Oh, he did not," Carole said. "Finn just reads too much into things."

"No, Carole, I can confirm what Finn says is true. I witnessed more than one occasion, and Kurt was quite upset with me when Finn and I started dating because he had some mixed up sense of proprietorship."

There was a long silence on the end of the line. Rachel had no idea how this was going to go, so after a moment, she decided to proceed.

"Look, I know this is a complicated issue and it's your family I'm messing with here. I'm just asking you to please give Finn a chance to speak. Just listen to him and see what he has to say."

"What he had to say was a big part of the problem."

Rachel sighed. "Yes. He and I have discussed his own responsibility here. I think he's prepared to accept that responsibility as long as someone will hear him out." She lowered her voice. "And for the record, Finn is also meeting my two gay dads tonight so I think we've found some resolution on the whole gay versus straight issue. Even if Finn doesn't always sound that way, he is open-minded at least." She waited a beat. "I mean, he's taking on me and I'm admittedly not the easiest person in the world to deal with. I just think someone with that big of a heart and that much patience deserves every opportunity to get those same things in return."

"Okay," Carole said eventually, her voice tight. "Tell Finn it will be the same time and place."

"I will. Thank you," Rachel said. She lingered to make sure there was no more conversation and then hit end.

She turned to sort out the mess of eyeliner that had happened when she was startled by the phone ringing. Within a few minutes she was totally finished with her makeup and she walked out of the bathroom. A quick glance to the alarm clock on her nightstand revealed it was nearly 4:30. Finn was curled up on his side, facing away from her on the bed, but she guessed the soft sound that matched time with his breathing was snoring. She smiled because he snored and she knew that. She headed for her closet to get her shoes and a belt (otherwise she just felt like she was wearing a knee-length shirt), but stopped on the way to pull the purple blanket from the end of her bed over him. It had been made for her two years ago by her Nana James, so it wasn't nearly long enough. His stocking feet stuck out the end and she had to fight the urge to laugh at the image.

Rachel had spent most of yesterday reorganizing her closet and so she easily found the extremely thin white belt she was looking for and her light blue flip-flops. The casual shoes were a little bit of a guilty pleasure and she only indulged during the summer.

She smiled to herself. It was summer. The months until the baggage of high school experience started again seemed endless and wonderful. Summertime was easily her favorite time of the year.


	2. Chapter 2

_**A/N: **__Thank you for the phenomenal response to this story. It's been amazing. And, uh…. Keep it coming. Haha. _

_**Disclaimer:**__ I don't own Glee._

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**Guess Who's Coming to Dinner**

Rachel leaned on the counter, watching her Daddy as he buzzed around, still fiddling with timers on the appliances. He seemed a little less chipper than he had when she saw him up in her room, but she wasn't sure she wanted to ask why. The only time his demeanor slipped was when he and Dad were arguing. Now that she was in a relationship of her own, she understood the importance of privacy and keeping things just between two people. She knew she had _a lot_ more of that in her future, too. It wasn't secrecy exactly, but discretion. She was aiming for more discretion this time around with Finn. It wasn't a quality that came easily to her.

She perched her chin into her palm. After he hadn't said anything for a solid five minutes since she sat down on the bar stool at the counter, she couldn't avoid at least asking. "Everything okay, Daddy?"

He sighed and turned around. He should've known she would catch him. "I suppose. Just a minor disagreement. We'll get through it." She nodded patiently and he didn't explain further. "I'm wondering, though, if it might be better to have Finn over another time."

She looked at him suspiciously. "Why?"

He moved to pull a bowl of grapes out of the fridge and slid them across the counter to her. She took three and popped them into her mouth in quick succession as she watched him.

"Well, he wasn't very thrilled that I let Finn stay in your room or that Finn fell asleep on your bed."

Rachel sighed, opening her mouth to attempt an argument but Daddy held up his hand.

"It's okay. You're down here anyway so it's not like we suspect anything untoward. Especially because you told me he hasn't been sleeping well to begin with and if there's one thing I remember about being a teenage boy, it's that they sleep all the time." He smiled and shrugged. "But the fact of the matter is that you're growing up and sometimes that isn't easy for us old men to accept." He cast a doubtful glance toward the stairs. "And we remember _other_ things about being a teenage boy."

"Are you trying to give me the sex talk?" She asked dryly, raising her eyebrows and reaching for another handful of grapes.

He hesitated. "I'm trying to express concern. And since you gave me a dirty look before when I didn't do anything wrong, I'm attempting to do it in private." He leveled a glance at her, pressing his lips together so dimples indented his cheeks. Try as they might to deny it, Rachel really _did_ look a fair amount like him. His annoyed look now was a lot like the annoyed look she had thrown upstairs when he was stern with Finn.

"Don't get me wrong, I'm thanking God you didn't bring Noah Puckerman home." His voice dropped to a more confidential volume as he picked up a handful of grapes and spread his palm out to study them instead of watch her. "But that pregnant girl was Finn's girlfriend first and he accepted her at her word that the baby was his. If that's the kind of relationship he had before…it's probably the kind of relationship he's going to expect again."

"How do you know all of this?" Rachel asked softly, watching him as he struggled a little to get the words out. He was afraid she would be angry with him.

"Annie struggled quite a bit when she found out her son had fathered a child at sixteen. She learned a lot about him then that she didn't really like, and she spent a lot of time talking to me and your dad about it all." His head came up and he smiled a little. "She asked how we had managed to raise you to be such a good girl."

Rachel nodded. "Well, you have raised me to be a good girl and I have goals, Daddy. I'm not going to give all that up the way Quinn and Noah almost did. They gave it all up for a little while anyway and it made everyone miserable." She lowered her voice, casting her own cautious glance towards the stairs. "And just for the record, Quinn misled Finn in that situation. There was technically no way he could've fathered her child. But that doesn't mean it didn't scare him into…" she shrugged. She didn't really want to say it, not to her dad. "We're taking things _very_ slowly."

Daddy held up his hands to stop her. "Okay. That's enough detail for me, thank you very much."

She smiled brightly. "Good," she breathed, the word like a sigh of relief as she relaxed her tense shoulders a little.

"I'll talk to your dad about it naturally, but even if we skip dinner this week, I think Finn will still be welcome here."

She leaned forward to kiss his cheek. "Thank you, Daddy." Her hand lingered on the smooth material of his dress shirt as she posed her next question. She knew Finn wouldn't be thrilled about it, but it also might alleviate some of the pressure he was carrying on his shoulders right now. "Could we do dinner tomorrow night instead? That way, you and dad can work this out. We're supposed to meet Finn's family anyway and try to work out some of the issues they're having. Maybe it would set him at ease a little bit if we postponed for a night."

He nodded. "That would be fine, sweetheart. Will you please just come home and light the candles for me?" She nodded her agreement as her eyes darted to the clock. It was just after five o'clock now, and if she remembered correctly the 'same time and place' Carole had mentioned on the phone was a five-thirty dinner at Breadstix. She grabbed a big handful of grapes from the bowl; those would probably have to tide her over because the menu at Breadstix was not her favorite.

"Yes. I'm going to go wake Finn up now because I think we need to leave," she admitted. "But thank you for everything." She moved off the counter and gave him a smile over her shoulder before she bounced up the stairs quickly, filling her mouth with grapes as she went.

She stopped for a minute in her doorway, looking at Finn as he slept. He had pulled the blanket around him tightly and rolled even more onto his stomach. The arm of his she could see was flung over her pillow and his face was pressed into it tightly. His breathing was deep and nearly silent. He was out _cold._ She didn't really want to wake him up. She wasn't sure how she should wake him up.

Once she had finished chewing her snack (and okay, so what if she stopped by her vanity as she walked through the room, flashing a smile and making sure her mouth was clean? It was good practice for days when the paparazzi was stalking her outside of restaurants anyway), she went over to the side of the bed closest to his face. She pressed a kiss to the side of his head and was surprised to feel his entire body shift, then his arm lift up so he could pull her under the blanket with him, like he was taking a bird under his quilt-embroidered purple satin wing. He kissed her forehead and then pulled his eyes half-open to look at her with a shy, sleepy smile.

Her Daddy's words came back to her a little bit.

_If that's the kind of relationship he had before…it's probably the kind of relationship he's going to expect again. _

She wondered if maybe pulling her next to him was a leftover habit from the long relationship he had been in before. How many times had he playfully flirted with Quinn like this? Maybe her dad wasn't talking just about sex. She didn't know how to do _any_ of this. Even with Jesse, she had maintained more distance than this. There had never been anything truly intimate about their relationship, and the way it ended had made her feel like maybe she was fooling herself that _anyone_ would want to be that intimate with her. Who would possibly want to be inside the mind of someone as intense and crazed as Rachel Berry?

She pushed away from him as gently as she could, trying to ignore his frown as her feet hit the ground and even harder to ignore the familiar wash of self-doubt as it threatened to drown her a little bit. If she ignored it, it would go away; it always did. "Hey, sorry to wake you, but I think we need to go. Your mom said same time and place for dinner."

He watched her carefully, tipping himself upward as the blanket she'd tucked around him loosened and his hand came up to rub at his eye. He was a little disoriented and wondered how long he'd actually been asleep because it felt like a lifetime. "What, um…" he cleared his throat. "What time is it?"

"A little after five," she said, pointing to the clock that was behind him. "You usually go with your mom around five-thirty, don't you?"

He nodded and couldn't restrain the huge yawn that escaped. "Yeah, at Breadstix. And I need to stop at my house and find a tie."

She shook her head a little. "Daddy cancelled. We're going to have dinner with them tomorrow night."

"But what about the drive-in?"

"We can go after," she promised. "We have dinner earlier on Saturdays because it breaks the Shabbat."

He shook his head. "You're gonna have to explain all that to me sometime." He watched her. She was still acting all distant and weird. He was asleep—what could he possibly have done? He sighed. "You okay?"

She nodded and plastered on a fake, too-small smile. "Yeah," she offered before she turned. He slid to the edge of the bed and bent down to grab his shoes and put them on. As he bent, he looked to make sure (even though he already knew) there was nothing that could've brushed up against her or made her uncomfortable about being close to him. There wasn't. He'd been so dead asleep he didn't even have a dream. Did he have bad breath or something? He searched his memory. He was pretty sure he put on deodorant this morning after he went to the rec center for his workout. His clothes were clean, he had showered… nope, no hygiene issues. No…man…issues. What was wrong?

He wasn't any closer to figuring it out by the time his shoes were tied.

He stood up quickly, following her to where she was waiting in her bedroom doorway with her purse tucked over her shoulder. He scowled a little as she looked at him expectantly. She still wasn't smiling, but she didn't necessarily look mad.

Maybe while she was explaining all the Jewish stuff, she could explain how to read her mind, too. That would be something useful he could learn, even if it took a long time. He had a feeling it would take a really, really long time for a girl like Rachel. Her mind was always going and her mouth was usually only about two steps behind. He realized, maybe a few minutes too late, that her silence was how he knew there was a problem. He was already on his way to figuring her out. The next step might be getting her to talk about something that mattered.

Breadstix wasn't too far from her house and she had rambled on the whole time about something or other, but she still hadn't said what was bothering her. If it wouldn't have been for the sudden change in her attitude when she pulled away from him, he wouldn't have ever known something was wrong, and that made him almost even more nervous. By the time he pulled his truck into the small parking lot behind the restaurant, he was so worked up he wasn't sure he could even make words.

All the same, he jogged around to open her door (finally, finally she waited. That had taken a long time to drill into her thick skull), and then kept his grip on her hand once she was standing on her own feet. He relaxed a little when she didn't hurry to let go.

Sometimes though, she would press herself into his side as they walked so their arms would touch all the way from their hands up to her shoulder, and she would be close enough he could kiss her and smell her hair again. She stayed back this time, though, and let him lead the way a little bit. So…better but still not normal? Man, he wanted her to fold into his side so she could hold him up while he was talking to his family. She'd only been gone for a few minutes but he sure did miss her.

They were a little bit early, there ahead of his mom and Burt, so they got a table for four and sat down. Even though it was Friday, it was early enough the place wasn't too crowded yet and they didn't have to wait for a table. Once they sat down and got drinks, Rachel practically shocking him by ordering root beer. He had just opened her mouth to ask her if that was actually vegan when she saw something by the front door that made her face crumple as she breathed out a harsh noise.

"What?" He asked, his eyes following the invisible trail hers were making to see for himself that Kurt had just walked in.

She shook her head. "Your mom told me Kurt wasn't coming."

Kurt spotted them and waved. Yeah, he was totally looking for them and that was lame. Finn had kind of been looking forward to the chance to say what he had to say without Kurt there to be all victimized about it.

"Will you trade me places so I don't have to sit by him?" Finn asked in a low voice.

Rachel frowned a little bit. Of course Kurt would want to sit by Finn. Kurt thought of proximity as a way to persuade people. She hated it when he did that. If he was arguing with her, he always ended up right in her face, demanding she see his point.

Finn was usually subject enough to peer pressure that she wondered if Kurt honestly thought he could pressure Finn into being gay—if only he said the right words about how 'cool' it would make him. She shook her head even as she felt herself starting to get mad. Being gay wasn't cool or uncool, it was just how you were. Finn shouldn't have to change that for Kurt. Why couldn't Kurt see that?

"Yeah, trade me," she said simply. She was surprised when, instead of getting up, he moved to just slide underneath her. She was small enough that it meant she brushed across his lap as she slid, his hands at her waist with a warm brush of skin she felt even through the piqued cotton of her dress.

She had been an idiot earlier. She could definitely get used to being close to him like that. She should've just sunk in and enjoyed the hug. Once she was settled on the other side of him, she tried to make it up to him a little bit by moving over to press against him with the length of their legs. His thighs were a _lot_ longer than hers and it made her feel like a little kid.

He watched her as she settled in right next to him, looking at her face for any sign of why she was being so hot and cold. There was nothing as she turned her head to smile at him, so he put his arm around her shoulders and leaned forward to take a drink before he realized he was drinking from her straw not his. Their drinks hadn't magically switched places.

Kurt surprised them both by dropping into the booth on the empty bench. "Hi, guys. Sorry for the last minute change."

"Whatever," Rachel said fiercely, peeling her eyes away from Finn's lips wrapped around her straw so she could lean forward. "You just wanted to undermine him."

Kurt raised his eyebrows. "Excuse me?"

"You thought there was no way he could pull off introducing me as his girlfriend and straightening things out with your parents. What is your problem, exactly? Why are you trying to ruin his life? He deserves a family, too, you know."

Finn looked at her with raised eyebrows. He had felt the shift in her posture, the way her shoulders tightened up as she prepared for battle. He thought maybe he'd gotten her to relax a little. He wasn't so sure he appreciated Kurt changing all that. But man, she was just getting started. He had heard that thread in her voice before and it was only when she was being defensive and maybe mad. She had that tone a lot when she talked to Kurt.

Kurt folded his arms and sat back against the green vinyl, his jaw set and unable to say exactly what he was thinking in front of Finn.

Finn decided maybe he should change the subject. He used his free hand to bat at the bottle of root beer and slide it back toward Rachel. It bumped the clear plastic cup that held his coke and the drink fizzed a little.

"Could I have my drink back?" He asked. He noticed his voice was deeper when he was talking to her like this and he wondered if she liked it. Maybe that was the problem before. Maybe she wanted to hear his voice and he hadn't said anything before he pulled her close because it was like his voice shook her out of her funk. She looked over at him with a smile before she picked up the bottle to get her own drink out of his way. She pulled the bottle to her lips for a drink and he totally forgot what he was doing as her lips wrapped around the straw. Her lip gloss today was a little lighter pink than normal but it made her lips all shiny and he wondered if it was a different flavor than the darker pink one she usually wore…

He was so distracted; maybe this was all a bad idea. He wasn't sure he could think clearly with her around. He peeled his eyes away from her mouth to move his cup and take a drink of his own soda, leaning forward and leaving it on the table so he had a reason to look away. He never needed it more than a few seconds later when her hand rested on his thigh. He knew the muscle tensed up under her touch and totally not in a bad way, but…yeah, he wanted his leg to fall asleep so he would be able to think of something other than her hand on his thigh.

The waitress came by, offering refills of their drinks and taking Kurt's drink request. That was about the point Burt and Carole walked through the door at the front of the restaurant and saw them all in the same beat. Kurt moved from the empty bench to sit next to Rachel as the parents settled in on the other side. Kurt was trying so hard not to actually touch Rachel or potentially brush against Finn's hand that one of his legs was hanging off the side of the bench.

"H-hey!" Burt said in surprise at seeing Kurt, taking in the three tense teenagers sitting opposite him and Carole all at once. This was not going to be easy or necessarily pleasant. "Kurt, we can move to another table if we need to."

Kurt shot an icy glance at Rachel who _dared_ him with her eyes to say anything negative about the arrangements that were made after he had imposed himself somewhere he'd previously not been expected.

"No, this is fine," Kurt said primly.

Finn raised his eyebrows. When Rachel's head was turned, he couldn't see the look on her face but Kurt now had the fear of God in his eyes. Since Kurt didn't believe in God and was pretty open about all that, whatever Rachel had said with her face was major. He didn't envy Kurt. And he was pretty happy, all over again, that she was his girl; that she was here with him now. He turned his wrist so his hand rested on her shoulder.

"So, guys, this is Rachel," Finn said simply. "And Rachel," he used his free hand to gesture. "This is Burt Hummel, Kurt's dad…and Carole Hudson, my mom."

"Nice to meet you," she said. "Thank you for letting us come tonight."

Carole nodded. "Thank you for calling," she said, directing a glance at Rachel before her eyes bore into Finn's. "We appreciate you 'messing with our family', I think is how you said it."

Rachel just nodded, letting the thanks bounce off her like she usually did. Finn knew she was soaking it up like a sponge and just trying to seem casual about it. The times when she let things bounce were so far and few between he wondered if she might be nervous. She pulled the bottle of root beer back to her mouth for a sip and, as his eyes followed, he thought he might be able to watch her do that all day. He was a _loser_.

Once she was done with the drink, she set the bottle back down. The silence at the table was not a comfortable one and Rachel naturally assumed the lead in the conversation because that's just the way she was. Plus, it was obvious pretty immediately no one else was willing to get their hands dirty like that. She was also not one for small talk, so she just started.

"So, Finn told me part of a conversation he had with Kurt was overheard," she said simply. She looked over at Finn who refused to move his eyes from her face while she spoke. In part it was because he liked watching her, but the larger part of it was he didn't want to see any of the reactions. Her look at him was nothing more than a glance before she faced his mom and Burt head-on. Kurt was twisted oddly in the seat, still maintaining physical distance but watching her sideways.

"It wasn't a conversation. He was _yelling_," Kurt finally said. As with before, whatever Rachel's face said shut him right up. Finn gulped air a little.

"Well, anyway, he told me that things were misinterpreted a little and he wasn't allowed to defend himself. I have no reason to doubt what he said, but would you agree this is a fair assessment of the situation?" She directed a cool gaze to Burt. Carole was looking at him questioningly.

Burt, for his part, seemed a little unnerved at her blunt nature, but was not worked up at all as he answered. "Sounds about right. I can't think of anything that would defend what I heard, though."

Rachel nodded. "He said that he referred to the furnishings in the room as 'faggy'. Correct?"

Finn's eyes widened. It was the only time he had ever seen her use such a word and he caught the flicker in her face that made it clear she wasn't comfortable with it. It sounded wrong to hear her choke that out, to hear her sweet voice say something like that. He felt ashamed all over again.

"Yeah," Burt said flatly. "That's right." He tossed a glance at Finn, but Finn was too busy keeping his eyes on Rachel as she spoke. She opened her mouth to continue, but Burt cut her off. "But when you say that kind of a word, there is no excuse; he was talking about Kurt that way."

Finn felt his jaw tighten. He wanted to say something, to defend Rachel since she had clearly been about to speak, but the words were stuck on the back of his tongue, gagging him. He should've known she could handle it anyway.

"Are you done? I'd like to speak now since you cut me off," she said. She made solid eye contact with Burt and he shut his mouth.

"I understand where you're coming from when you say that. I disagree with you, but I understand what you're saying. I think it's important for you to realize that you only have half the story and you cut Finn out of your life before you let him even attempt to fill you in on the other half." She looked over at Finn, but he still looked kind of like he might throw up. He obviously wasn't going to say anything just yet. Her hand was still on his thigh and she gave it a little squeeze but the gesture didn't change the look on his face.

"Kurt had been expressing an interest in Finn for _months_ before anything happened with your families," she replied. Finn dragged his eyes away from her to Burt and his mom. Carole was just listening and Burt was too, but looked maybe a little bit sick.

Rachel continued, undeterred and still hoping Finn would jump in to actually defend himself. "He had put Finn in several uncomfortable positions that you might not have been aware of; things like singing love songs to him in glee club and making comments about having a romantic relationship every chance he got."

"How is that any different than what you did?" Kurt finally said, tears standing in his eyes. The words came out somewhere between a gasp and a hiss.

"Let me spell this out for you, Kurt," she replied. She tossed her head to the side with emphasis, pulling her arms against her chest as her neck snapped and her hair flipped to direct every word at the boy sitting next to her. "Finn is not gay. Finn is not interested in boys. The fact that I don't have a penis is enough of a difference between you and me for him."

Finn choked on air, Burt's eyes got wide, and Carole raised her hand to her mouth. Finn squeezed Rachel's shoulder—_hard—_and tried to get her attention.

"Rach, come on." He said softly. "Watch it, please. This is just going to make things worse."

"No, Finn!" She turned her head and he sank back a little bit. "His behavior is ridiculous and it's time someone stood up to him. I guess I have to be the one since I'm the one he seems to call out the most frequently."

Finn had nothing to say in response as Kurt continued to gape at her. He looked at Kurt for the first time in probably a week and shrugged.

Rachel redirected her attention to Kurt. "You might have tried to speak up initially when all of this was happening. I can't know because there were only three people in the room and only one of them has told me anything that happened at all. But you and I both know that your behavior contributed in a huge way to the situation as it stands now, and in the end you backed down and let someone else take the fall when you were partially responsible."

"Now wait a minute—" Burt cut in.

Rachel held up her hand. "No. You've had your turn. It's _mine_ now."

"She's right, Dad," Kurt squeaked out. Burt raised his eyebrows and collapsed a little bit, but didn't say anything as Kurt continued. "Finn told me he was uncomfortable around me. More than once…and when he started talking that day, his first statement was that he didn't want to have to worry about what I would say or do that was inappropriate in his own room. He had said most of it to me before, but I persisted anyway. He was right."

"He wasn't right," Burt said, but his voice had a little less fire in it.

With all the silence between arguments, Finn finally felt like he could speak.

"I shouldn't have said what you heard and I _am_ sorry about at least that part," he jumped in. "But before you let me speak at all, you told me to leave even if it cost you my mom." Rachel gave Finn's thigh another squeeze and he let his fingertips trace the shoulder on her dress for comfort; for courage. "You told me you didn't want poison like me in your house. I don't want to come back if that's what you really think of me. I can't live in a house where someone stares at me all the time because it creeps me out. Me and Kurt are different and it isn't bad, but…just because he's sensitive doesn't mean I'm going to take all the blame when we fight about it. I have to be able to defend myself."

"You don't understand the first thing about being gay," Kurt said, his voice fierce. "You don't know what it feels like to have to fight for every single thing just because you're _you_."

"I understand that," Rachel said simply, cutting in even as her eyes were planted firmly on her lap. "Yet would say that I'm content to sit back and play the victim?"

Kurt's jaw flapped a little, at a loss for words. She took his silence as a sign she should keep going.

"No. You just have to power through. You have to let your attitude talk for you and stand in the face of everything that terrifies you. And you can't back down," she whispered. "But you do. You wait for someone else to take up the cause and it's annoying."

Kurt snorted a little bit. "_You're_ calling _me_ annoying?" He asked with a little laugh.

"Yes," she said flatly. "Because you have no trouble standing up to me, but you can't seem to do it when it really matters. This isn't a solo or some sort of a singing showdown. This is your family and you're hurting someone I care about. That's annoying." The words came out fast and low.

"I-I'm sorry," Kurt said in a small voice.

"I don't need your apology. Finn's the one who deserves it."

Kurt flipped a glance to Finn. "She's right, Finn. I'm sorry. I-I…I don't know what else to say."

Finn sighed. "I'm sorry too, man," he said in a low voice. He looked over to Burt. "I'm sorry, too. I'm part of a new generation of dude, I just..." he closed his eyes and shook his head. "I just need to learn how to keep my mouth shut."

Carole was next. She was looking right at Finn. "I'm sorry I didn't listen to you," she said. Her voice was soft. "I should've gotten all sides of the story. And I should've known there was more to it because I know your heart. You needed me to be your mother and I let you down. I'm sorry."

If being angry was something Finn didn't handle well, emotional displays were even worse. He had retracted his arm from around Rachel to tuck both his hands between his knees as he leaned forward, eyes trained on the table as he took in their words but didn't respond to any of it. Rachel turned her head to look at him, to watch him carefully as he leaned forward and took a small drink of his dwindling soda. Before too long, he wasn't going to have anything to hide behind because his drink would be gone.

Burt spoke last and, although his tone was conversational, his words were resolute. "I'm really glad I misjudged the situation but I'm not sorry. I'm not sorry for defending my son," he said simply. "I'm going to have to get to know you better before you're welcome in my home again, Finn. That's all there is to it."

Finn didn't look up. "I don't want to come back, Burt. And you're not going to get to know me better."

Rachel's eyes closed and she put her hand on Finn's shoulder. His voice was so low it could barely be heard. His breathing was careful and she knew he was mad and he was hurt and he was focusing on his breathing because it was probably the only thing he could control at the moment.

"Finn," Carole said in gentle protest. Maybe even a little begging. "Come on."

He looked up at his mom. They didn't say anything, just stared at each other. His leg pressed against Rachel's and she knew immediately what he needed. He needed to _go_.

She looked over to Kurt, her tone totally different. She reached down and took Finn's hand as she said the words. "Will you please move?" She asked Kurt. He was so close to the edge of the seat that all he had to do was stand up. Finn let her pull him and didn't look at anyone else.

He followed her outside, almost on auto pilot. He was still holding her hand and she leaned against him, pressing her shoulder into his bicep as they plodded slowly to his truck.

"Will you…will you drive please?" He requested, retrieving the keys from his pocket and handing them over to her. She accepted them as they reached the truck, but she didn't know where she was going to go. She wasn't sure what he needed or what was going on, and she hated the uncertainty of it.

She figured out where they were going right about the time they arrived at the municipal park. He seemed to know this was where she was going, too, and he turned to grab the blanket from the small area in the cab of the truck behind the seats to retrieve the blanket they had laid on all afternoon just two days ago.

They worked wordlessly to get the car locked up and the blanket spread and smoothed over the ground and then laid down on it, but he laid down and dropped his head onto her stomach instead of just laying beside her.

There was no hesitation in the physical contact this time. This was what he needed. As he pressed his head against her stomach, feeling the hard line of muscle underneath his ear, he brought a hand up to toy with the hem of her skirt.

"Sorry," he mumbled.

"It's okay," she admitted carefully. She raised a hand up to play with his hair. "What's going on?"

He sighed and was totally embarrassed to feel tears in his eyes as he choked out the words. "I just realized Burt will never be _my_ dad. Him and my mom can stay together forever and he'll always just be Kurt's dad. I'll still be by myself." She frowned.

"I want my dad," he said simply before he turned his face into her dress and closed his eyes, letting his tears drip into the material. She didn't point out that what he wanted was something he had never known and couldn't wish for anyway; he couldn't wish for it if he didn't know what it was like to have it, could he? "I just want someone who's on my side, you know?"

"I'm here," she said simply, helplessly. She let her fingers drift through his hair and brought her free hand up cradle her head in her palm. It was still not dark yet, but the sky was cloudless. She could see the faint outline of the moon so she fixed her gaze on that as he wrapped both his arms around her and held on tight.

This was not how she had pictured offering comfort. This was not how she pictured being a real girlfriend. This was not how she had imagined intimacy. It was so much_ more_. She was unsurprised to feel herself crying along with him.

She was also unsurprised when he finally moved and, despite the fact her eyes were closed, she knew he was coming before she felt his soft lips moving against hers. She kissed him slowly, letting the hand that had been in his hair come up to resume its place messing with his hair even more. One thing she'd discovered about Finn? He wasn't vain enough to care if she messed his hair up when they kissed. In fact, he was so unparticular about his hair anyway (unlike Jesse) that you couldn't even tell. It just stuck out at different angles.

He pulled away and gave her a little smile as she used her thumbs to wipe the tears off his cheeks.

"Feel better?" She asked slowly. She dragged her eyes open and smiled at him, even though his cheeks were flushed and his eyes were a little red.

"Yeah. I had a question and you answered it."

"Really? I didn't say anything." She asked. His smile widened a little and he pressed another soft, short kiss to her mouth.

"Well, I noticed your lip gloss was a different color. So I wondered if it tasted the same."

Her hand dropped to her lips. Her lip gloss was long since kissed off, but she hadn't realized she grabbed a different kind.

"It does," he said simply. "But I have another question."

"Okay…" she asked. For some reason, she felt totally knocked off-balance by his _last_ question.

"What was wrong earlier? Why did you pull away from me so fast?" He asked. He gave her another small kiss to hopefully make her not think so much and give him a real answer. It was step one of getting to know what was in her real mind, not the stage face she put on.

She was caught up in his soft kisses and didn't think. "It was stupid…I was thinking about something my dad said."

This caught his attention and his head pulled back abruptly. "What?"

Rachel sighed, her fingers still tripping over his hairline as she looked over his face. How could she ever be anything but honest with him? It hit her like a kick to the gut. "He was worried that you've had sex before and would expect it from me. I told him we were going slow. But then I came to wake you up and you pulled me close and I realized I've never had that with anyone, either. You and Quinn probably had all kinds of intimacy like that, even if you never had sex." Her voice was low at the end and she couldn't look right at his eyes as he realized what she actually said.

"Going slow…" he nodded. "Going slow is good."

"Really?"

"Yeah," he admitted. He gave her one last, short and sweet kiss before he reclined back against her to stare up at the slightly darkened sky.

"Because if you expect that…" she sighed and she didn't recognize her own voice as she squeaked out the last, most honest part. "Well, I just don't know how to do any of this. I'm scared."

"See, maybe that's how we do this," he said. "I don't know. Like, I cry like a girl and talk about my family. And you tell me you're scared." His head moved against her stomach and she could feel his eyes on her chin, but she wouldn't be able to see him if she looked down anyway. It didn't matter because she could _feel_ him. He let out a deep breath. "And then we just breathe for a while."

She swallowed hard but didn't speak. He was right. And she realized something else: Grease had no idea about those summer nights.


	3. Chapter 3

_**A/N: **__So this part turned. This is not what I was intending to do with this story at all, but it just flowed so well that I hope it works and it fits their characters. Thank you for all the feedback and all the encouragement with this story. I certainly hope this part lives up to your expectations, and I certainly certainly hope you'll let me know. I'm really bad at hinting, so I thought I would just come right out and say that. Anyway..._

_**Disclaimer: **__ I don't own Glee or the song I used. No infringement is intended._

_**Song Used: **_**Pretty Eyes **by **Jason Reeves **

* * *

Finn stared at the console in his truck as he sat parked in front of her house. She had told him her dads expected him to come to the door, not just honk the horn. He didn't have a problem with that, either.

What he _did_ have a problem with was getting pulled inside by an angry parent after he'd maybe kinda sorta been so involved in his own problems he hadn't had her home last night as promised to light some candles she still hadn't explained about and, in fact, he hadn't even gotten her home by her curfew after they'd fallen asleep on the blanket at the park while they were counting stars. He couldn't explain it, either, but laying on her was way more comfortable than the sleeping bag on the floor, even if her body was all tight and little and toned.

His other problem was that he was now running late to meet his mom—and only his mom—for brunch. She had suggested lunch and he'd bumped the time up because he wanted Rachel to be able to go and they had told her dads (well, okay, she had taken over and planned their evening and told her dads for him but it was _fine_, really, just like he'd told her for the fifth time when she had texted him her worries) they would be home no later than three for dinner. It was something to do with Shabbat that they ate so early. Plus, she was in trouble for not being there last night, but not as in trouble as she would be if they flaked two nights in a row.

He sent her another text message. He wanted to make sure she was ready to walk out the door when he knocked. They could sort out the stuff with her dads later.

_You ready babe?_

His mom had called with tears in her voice and begged him to meet her today. She claimed she really wanted to work everything out, and she said it seemed like there was something between him and Burt getting in the way of the relationship he had with her, but wasn't it all tied together now? He wasn't sure he could really separate it all out. Rachel was way better with this crap than he was, and that was why he'd asked his mom if Rachel could go. Rachel would help him sort this out. He really wanted her to help him with this.

_Ready. Come and get me._

He smiled at her message. It sounded like she was a little kid and like she was taunting him. He could only wish they were at the age where playing hide and seek was fun or appropriate. He was old enough now that he was a little more concerned what to do with her now that he had her. He sighed. She had mentioned going slow and it was the first time he had honestly thought about it in any way. Truthfully, he was torn when it came to sex. He really wanted to have it, and he really thought Rachel was super sexy and he thought he might want to have sex with her. On the other hand, he'd gotten just a small taste of it in a motel with Santana (and he still knew he deserved a good face-palm for that one), and he knew he didn't want to just do it. He wanted the whole thing with Rachel—the relationship that lasted forever. He wanted her to be his last first everything. That meant he should go slow, right? Make sure it was right?

And definitely not put them in a position where he might knock her up.

Wow. That was the first time he'd thought of it like that. When he put action then consequence that way, maybe he didn't want to have sex. At least, not yet. He knew he'd feel differently about it the next time they were making out, but sitting in the front seat of his truck at this particular moment, he was okay waiting for a while. Plus, it's not like he'd know what to do anyway, and the last thing he wanted Rachel to think about him was that he was a fail. He wanted her to think he was worth it. She'd have to put way more energy into the relationship before it would be worth it even if he was bad in bed.

Suddenly, he felt a little better facing her dads. It was lots easier when he was thinking about waiting on all the physical stuff than when he was thinking about her _like that_. He nodded once to himself and tucked his phone into his pocket. He didn't bother locking the truck door before he went up to press the button on the doorbell.

He drew in a breath when her not-black dad opened the door. He had told Finn his name the other day, but to Finn his first name didn't really matter.

"Hi, Mr. Berry," he said simply, keeping his eyes on the stairs behind the older man's head.

"Hello, Finn. Is there something I can help you with?" He asked, pulling the door a little closer.

Finn felt the uncertain blush creep up his cheeks and his heartbeat kicked in a little faster. "Ummm…" he looked down, wondering if he could possibly get his phone out of his pocket and text Rachel to ask for help without her dad noticing.

"I'm just kidding. Rachel should be right down. Come on inside," he offered with a chuckle, stepping off to the side and opening the door a little wider. Once Finn stepped inside and her dad closed the door, Finn tucked his hands in his pockets. He was planning on standing in the entryway until he saw Rachel's familiar face.

His mouth didn't feel totally dry, though, so he did feel comfortable extending another apology for the night before. "I'm still really, really sorry about last night." Finn said. "I…I guess I just have too much going on with my family. I should've had Rachel home sooner."

"Rachel filled us in this morning," he said simply. "Don't worry about it too much." He shrugged and flicked a glance toward the stairs and Finn felt himself relax a little bit. At least this was weird for both of them. And where was Rachel, anyway?

Finn nodded. "Well, I just don't want you to think I have too much going on to take good care of Rachel. She can take care of herself just fine and all but I… well…"

Her dad smiled widely. "Call me Hiram."

"Okay, Hiram." Finn gasped out a small breath. "I'm sorry, I'm really nervous." It was the first time in his life honesty had been the best policy.

"I think we both are." He lowered his voice and moved a little closer to Finn. "Rachel has told us enough about you that we like you."

"Has she told you that I'm bad with words? At some point I'm sure I'll blurt out something bad."

At this Hiram laughed. "She might've mentioned it, Finn. She might've mentioned it."

It was about now that Rachel came bounding down the stairs, dressed in a sleeveless blue dress with a little bit lower neckline than he was used to seeing on her. _Now _his mouth was dry. She was so pretty and he was so lucky. He only wished they were going somewhere fun and he wasn't the dirtbag who'd gotten her into trouble last night.

"Hi," she said.

He tried to smile, tried to force his thoughts from the thousands of other directions they'd gone the instant he saw her. "Hi," he responded, feeling like even that word was forced.

And he was stupid for thinking he could hold off on the physical stuff. It was kind of totally up to her, and he knew she knew it. But it was a good thing, her being in charge, because he knew he probably shouldn't be.

Her shoes made her much taller, probably at least two or three inches, and he noticed when she breezed up to him to brush a kiss on his cheek. He only had to bend down a little bit to accept it. He caught the mint smell from her lip gloss, and he noticed the way she didn't really press her lips down so she didn't get the goop all over his face.

He had rested his hand on her waist out of habit as he bent to accept her kiss and she didn't move enough now that it fell off her. Her dress was kind of a rough material, the feel of it under his fingertips a little distracting and all, but there was also a see-through strip at the bottom where the hemline grazed the middle of her thigh. This was where his eyes fell as she turned to offer a kiss on the cheek to her dad, and he hoped Hiram Berry didn't catch him staring at Rachel's legs. That would just be awkward even if her legs were hot and she wore short dresses that made it obvious how hot her legs were, even more with the crazy high heels, and how perfect her tan was and…

…and now she was staring at him like he was crazy.

"Okay, let's go," he said, snapping his eyes off her and turning for the door. He held the door and waited for her to go through before he pressed a hand into her back and followed right behind her down the steps and to his truck.

Once they got seated in the truck, she slid over on the small bench seat and grabbed his face to plant a long kiss on him. She finally dragged her knees over so she was kneeling on the seat and kissing him absolutely senseless. He had been careful so far, trying so hard not to let his hands wander _too _far. He let them wander a little this time, around the small tie that was at her waist, and up just a little to toy with the bottom of the blue ruffles that came all the way down her shoulders, across her chest, and faded to almost nothing at the waistband.

"What was _that_ for?" He asked, dazed when he pulled away. He was still playing with the frills from her dress in his fingers as he dragged his eyes open to look at her.

"Well…we didn't try that last night and I was thinking maybe you would be less nervous if I just kissed you until you couldn't think straight."

He smiled and nodded at her. "We should totally try that. But let's do it in the parking lot at the restaurant too, okay?"

She nodded and settled back onto her side of the truck. "Okay."

"Are you _sure _you didn't get into too much trouble last night?" He asked softly. It had been too long since he touched her so he reached out and grabbed her hand.

"Yes," she said. "They were concerned, but as soon as I called to explain that I had left my phone in the car and we were out in public, they relaxed a little. Then our neighbor was called as a witness because she had stopped by after walking her dog to confirm she'd seen us asleep on the blanket in the park."

He breathed out a little. "I just don't want to piss them off when we haven't even been together for a month yet because that makes the rest of our lives, like, really long."

"The rest of our lives?" She asked, her voice no more than a squeak as she looked over at him.

"What?" He asked, his gaze alternating quickly between her skeptical glance and the nearly-empty road.

"I didn't know boys thought about things like that," she said, finally turning forward. She shrugged a little.

"Yeah, well…that's why I'm so nervous to meet them," he admitted in a low voice.

"You shouldn't be nervous," she said. "Maybe we'll have to try making out as a distraction for that, too."

"That's not a good idea," he grumbled. The next flick of a glance toward her was met with a scowl. He must've been getting better at reading her than he thought because he was pretty sure he knew what that was all about. "I mean, it's probably not cool if I hang out with your dads after…with…"

She flushed a deep red that almost made her looked sunburned and didn't say another word about it, but at least her scowl was gone.

Rachel was still pondering _that_ as Finn pulled his truck into the diner parking lot. She had seen his mom's car, but she was still distracted. She knew what it felt like for her when they made out. She knew what she thought of when they made all the quiet promises and had all the conversations about being a couple on the blanket at the park. But she had never stopped to think about the fact that he might be thinking or feeling some of the same things.

He parked the truck and pulled the keys out of the ignition before he turned to look at her. "So much for a distraction," he teased lightly.

She thought about sitting across from his mom, and the innocent look he always had on his face while he was talking to or about his mom. Could she really sit there with her lips still on fire from his kisses and the words he whispered turning her cheeks pink, while he sat there looking so boyish?

"I think you're right," she said simply. His eyebrows went up in surprise. Rachel almost _never_ said those words, in that order, to or about another person. "That would be a bad idea."

He smiled a little bit. He had asked her to come with him because he felt shaky and got so mad when he was trying to deal with all this family stuff. He thought he might know a way to make her feel really good but she would probably not be a lot of help to him during breakfast if he did. He decided to go for it anyway because it seemed like a good boyfriend thing to do. Every minute he was with her, he just wanted to be a better boyfriend.

Finn reached his hand out and touched the ruffles on the stomach of her dress. He felt her stomach pull away from the fabric with her soft inhale, and that was awesome, but the look in her eyes was even better. "I like your dress. It's really pretty on you," he admitted. It was totally okay to admit stuff like that when it was just you and your girlfriend, right? Because she just kept watching him, and even though her mouth didn't move, her eyes were happy and it looked like maybe she was glowing from his compliment.

She thought maybe she should thank him, but she couldn't open her mouth to get the words out. So instead she watched as he got out of the truck and came around to her side. Apparently, it had been a rather large conversation at the Hudson-Hummel family dinner at some point before the bigger stuff settled in—little things about how to treat a date. He had become a stickler about opening her doors and while it went against everything in her independent nature to submit to him like that, on the other hand it totally _didn't_ and she loved it. He usually wasn't a detail-oriented kind of guy and she liked this small detail that she had learned about him.

He took her hand to help her out of the car and kissed the back of it before he dropped it and clutched her fingers in a more familiar way as they walked in. Carole was sitting alone in a booth with a cup of coffee in front of her as they slid into the side opposite her.

It was, as Carole had predicted in her call to Finn earlier, a much more relaxed setting. They didn't talk right away but the silence wasn't necessarily uncomfortable. They actually placed their order and had their drinks before anyone spoke.

Unsurprisingly, Carole was the first. "Finn, I really miss you."

Her quiet, sincere words took both of them off-guard. Rachel felt all her defenses and uncertainty slide as she looked over at Finn and waited for him to say something.

"I miss you, too," he said. He shrugged a little bit. "That's not the problem."

"I know it's not," his mom admitted. She pulled her coffee mug closer to her and looked down into it. Although she was much shorter than Finn, Rachel noticed something familiar in the hunch of the woman's shoulders and in her entire posture as she seemed to surround the cup on the table. She fought the urge to smile at the commonality between mother and son but, just like last night, she rested her hand on Finn's leg and continued to watch him.

"I'm glad you're happy with Burt," he said eventually. "I really am."

"You've always had a really hard time with change," Carole started. "And this is a big one. I never expected it to go smoothly." She pulled in a deep breath. "But I need you to try harder. I'm willing to try harder, too. So tell me what you want me to do."

Finn sighed and nodded, looking at Rachel a little before he wanted to speak. He dropped his hand to grab hers and his grip was so tight it almost took her breath away. This was just so hard for him. She wished there was more she could do, but he hadn't talked about anything like this. She didn't know what he was going to say.

There was a long, tense pause before he even took a breath. "I don't want to live in that house. I can't share a room with Kurt, no matter how many privacy partitions or whatever else he puts up."

Carole nodded. "We have already been looking, but it's going to take time. We can't afford to do much until the other houses are sold, though."

"I can't share a bathroom with him, either."

Carole nodded again. "Well, we know you can share one with me. What about Burt?"

Finn sighed. He was learning about compromise. It was part of his new relationship and was starting to be a major (pain in the ass) part of his life. He knew that's what it would be, if they allowed him to shower upstairs or whatever. It would be a compromise. He looked at Rachel and then he realized how tightly he was holding her hand. There was no way that should be okay. But when she looked back at him she wasn't pulling a face or anything so she was probably okay, right? And he needed to hold her hand. He needed to touch her, to know she was there. It made him feel better.

How could someone's hand, someone else's breathing right next you, how could that make it easier to figure out what you were thinking and to put it into words?

Rachel was watching him struggle. She always had words. There were always no less than a hundred words on the tip of her tongue, and that was operating at a net capacity. As soon as she'd spoken something, more replaced them. She wasn't sure how to loan him that ability, she only wished it were possible. But she didn't want to seem patronizing and try to speak for him (yet another quality of her personality she wanted to tone down a little). Plus, she didn't know what he was thinking exactly, even though he was looking at her like he was waiting for her to talk.

"Finn, do you have a problem with Burt?" Rachel asked softly.

"He hates me," Finn said simply. "How could I not have a problem with him?"

She scowled, and as soon as all the doubt and hurt in his voice hit her ears it was like she forgot anyone else was with them. She just wanted to fix it. There was nothing she could do about him feeling like Burt wasn't his dad. "Why do you think he hates you?"

"He called me poison, Rachel." His voice was low and full of steel and she frowned. She didn't have a comeback for that. Burt himself said he wasn't sorry for it.

She pulled her orange juice up from the table and pulled her hand off his leg so she could use it to hold her straw in place as she drank. Finn was watching, swallowed once hard, and then excused himself. She set the cup back down and sighed as she watched him go.

If the silence before was comfortable, it was only because Finn was there. The silence between the two women was unbearable.

"My dads have offered to let Finn stay in our guest bedroom," Rachel began. "They discussed it with me this morning. Finn said your old house has sold and he needed somewhere to stay and…well…that's an option."

Carole watched her as she spoke, but the sinking feeling didn't disappear. Carole felt like she was losing her son, the most important person in the world to her, and she didn't really see how _options_ would help. "You seem like a smart girl, Rachel. Do you think that's a good idea?" Carole kind of hesitated to ask the question; if everything she had seen about Rachel was true (and granted, it wasn't much just yet), she thought maybe having her adoring boyfriend under the same roof would hold a lot of appeal for the pint-sized beauty.

Rachel's eyes swept over Carole's face. There was no way a devoted mother would want her son to live with other people. It tickled at the back of her throat and made her want to cry.

Her dads were…beyond the best. They were amazing and they loved her and were her two biggest advocates. But it didn't change the fact that she'd always wanted a _mother_. There was something special that a strong female provided for a child, especially a female child, and Rachel knew it. She picked up her juice again, hoping to swallow the tears that threatened along with the beverage. All she had ever wanted was what Finn had—a loving mother. Her own mother had closed that door. Slammed it, actually. Right in her face, no looking back or second guessing. And here was Carole, the actual example of a devoted mother, doing exactly that for her child. For _Finn_. He deserved it. But Rachel wanted it, too.

"No I don't," she answered finally, her voice a little rough. "I think Finn is lucky to have you and he should work this out now before it gets any worse. I don't see a single way that would be possible if he isn't living under your roof."

A mother _should_ want her child with her. A mother _should_ love her child enough to figure out the hard stuff. Rachel closed her eyes, overcome for a moment with her own thoughts and wishes for what a mother should be, should do; her own wishes for something she'd never known, always idealized, and would never, ever have.

For all her ruminations last night about how unfamiliar Finn's family situation was to her, she now realized knew exactly how Finn felt. And it was pretty helpless.

She really, really didn't want to cry in front of Finn's mother and she couldn't even bear to look at the other woman just then. Finn's mother had invited Quinn to live with them when Quinn was pregnant and by all accounts had gotten along with Quinn. She got along with the girl who was not emotional or loud and who never lost her composure easily. It wasn't a stretch to imagine she would hate Rachel being so drastically opposite. So she sat with her eyes closed her head turned and she tried the first breathing exercise she had ever learned at vocal lessons.

"Rach?" She felt him settle back onto the bench next to her, but she couldn't turn her head and look at him. If she looked at him she would absolutely lose it.

"What happened?" He asked, obviously redirecting his attention to his mom.

"I-I-I don't know," Carole stammered. "She just said her dads had offered to let you stay with them when the house sold and…" Carole gestured toward where Rachel was still sitting with her posture slumped and biting her lip with her eyes closed, her breathing largely controlled but occasionally ragged as it got away from her.

"That's not a good idea," Finn said simply. He was casting doubtful glances at the back of Rachel's head and then looking back to his mom.

The server came with their food and there was the hassle of sorting all that out. Rachel didn't move, still fighting and slowly losing her battle for control.

She kept telling herself that this, none of this was about her, and as out-of-character as it might've seemed, she didn't want to steal the focus. Not this time.

Finally, Finn spoke around a mouthful of…something. What had he just eaten? He glanced down at his plate. Maybe Rachel found his bacon offensive? She hadn't ever really stayed turned away from his food before. Commented that she wished he didn't eat sixteen bites at a time, sure. But she hadn't ever just shut down right in the middle of conversation just because there were eggs on the table. But maybe she'd had some weird flashback to Jesse? He sighed. The food hadn't even been on the table at the time. The food wasn't the problem.

Take that Quinn – he was too capable of _deductive reasoning._

He finally looked at his mom, having received a little clarity in the restroom even if all he'd done was wash his hands. Four times. Maybe the answer was in the soap or something. Either way, he had a feeling he'd better spit this out and figure out what was going on with Rachel.

"I will move in if Burt says it's okay as long as I don't have to be alone with him or Kurt. When you aren't there, I won't be either unless I'm asleep. I already have one job and I can get another one if I need to just to stay out of the house more."

"Okay," Carole said simply. "And Finn, really, I'm sorry. I should've gotten the entire story. I guess I was just so caught up in the idea of a whole family for us that I…I…"

"Well, Kurt's kinda like the daughter you never had," Finn said with a shrug and a little bit of his normal humor returning. He glanced over at Rachel, who had only moved to bring her hand over her eyes, trying to stop the tears that were leaking out with her fingers so the others wouldn't see. He frowned. "And maybe eventually Rachel will be another one."

And he must've said something wrong, because she _freaked out_. She pulled her hand away from her face and pushed against him frantically, her breathing ragged and out of control. He was totally stunned and must not have moved quick enough because she was up and over the seat of the booth faster than he could do anything.

He sort of knew what it was, just by watching. It was how he had felt last night only expressed like _Rachel _would express it. He would zone out and try to find a distraction. Rachel would claw her way out of a booth, out of a restaurant…he just didn't know what would make her do all that. And he remembered again that they were just starting out. He needed to learn what made her act like this. He had to go figure it out. He had no idea how to help her.

He looked at his mom, totally panic-stricken and hoping for any sort of advice. She seemed just as surprised by it as he was and it was like she expected him to know what to do. Except he didn't. He didn't know what to do at all. Rachel was the one who had known what to do last night when he felt like that.

"Go," Carole said simply. He nodded, then rose and turned in the same step, out the door the same way Rachel had gone. Carole sighed, pulling her mug of coffee up to her lips as she watched Finn jog by the large diner window in search of his girlfriend. She sighed and got her cell phone out of her purse, waiting for the inevitable text message that said they weren't coming back.

Finn had passed the parking lot for the small diner and now his gaze was reaching out further than his run, looking for any sign of her—any flash of brown hair or blue dress or tanned legs—but he didn't see anything. He reached the end of the block and slowed to a stop.

That wasn't good. How do you narrow down a direction where there are three to choose from? One in three are not very good odds, even he knows that. He inhaled a deep breath to maybe stop his heart from pounding right out of his chest and even though he wasn't winded, he thought maybe he should start doing laps or something again because his heart shouldn't have been beating so hard if he were really in shape enough for football camp. But his heart wasn't beating out of his chest because he had been running, it was beating out of his chest because he was _scared_. Like an hour out of the house and he'd already lost her. How would he make that up to her dads? They trusted him to keep her safe.

Beyond that, how could he explain it to _her_? Maybe she thought once they had decided to become a couple they were automatically linked by GPS or something else. Maybe she expected that he could just magically find her and—why? Why couldn't he magically find her?

It all went back to figuring out how her mind worked. He took another deep breath. If he were Rachel Berry, and he were upset about something but no one knew what, where would he go?

Oh, that wasn't helping. But at least he caught a glimpse of her.

She was sinking to the ground underneath a tree right outside the building he recognized as the…Jewish church. He probably ought to make an effort to remember exactly what that building was named.

But regardless, he had a direction and he walked toward her instead of running. She had her face in her hands still and her shoulders were shaking. Her legs were twisted underneath her in a way that there was no way it was comfortable and all he could remember was burying his face in her dress last night and crying until he didn't feel like there were tears left and he felt like the world's worst boyfriend because she was crying into her hands instead of leaning on him.

His steps slowed down as he walked toward her and he tucked his hands into loose pockets of the cargo shorts. He stopped entirely just a few feet away from her and watched her carefully, only sort of taking heart in the fact there was no way he'd done this. That didn't mean it wasn't up to him to _undo_ it.

She was totally not aware he was there. He sat down next to her and crossed his legs into a triangle before he pulled her into his lap. She gasped and looked up in surprise as his hands touched her arms, but she moved willingly against him and instead of backing away like the day before, she turned into him.

And that folks, is what they call _progress._

Not such a great feeling? Well, besides the crying of course—the tree she had picked to sit under was next to a sidewalk. And the sidewalk led into the building. And the door that it led into was the one her dad walked out of as soon as the services were over for the morning.

So to sum up: Rachel was still in trouble for not coming home on time. Rachel was crying hysterically in his lap. And her dad was walking toward him. Yeah, any relief he felt when she actually accepted any sort of physical comfort was kind of cancelled out by the look on her dad's face as he approached them.

"Rach," he said, letting his fingertips dance over her bare arm. It didn't really seem to get through.

"What's going on here?" Hiram Berry asked as he approached.

Finn really didn't want to try and answer the question while the guy's daughter was _in his lap_. Even if it was completely innocent. Which it totally was—of course. (And THANK GOD. If this was awkward, getting caught making out would be about a thousand times worse and he was not quite ready for that heart attack yet.)

"I don't know," Finn said carefully. He didn't want to speak too loudly and pop whatever hell-bubble she was in at the moment even though that was kind of his overall goal here. "Um…"

Hiram had obviously realized that Finn was a total idiot with crying girl, and had also obviously decided to take pity on Finn since if he was an idiot with crying girl, he was just _in for it_…like for the long haul. Because with this particular girl, well, this scenario was going to play out a lot in the future most likely.

"Get her a glass of water," Hiram said, keeping his voice low, too. "The colder the better."

Finn frowned, but nodded. He had seen a glass in her room with a gold star on it. He wondered if it was something special or if it had to be _that_ glass or something. But he wasn't really supposed to have spent that much time in her room; half of what he had spent, he had a feeling, was kind of off the map. So he didn't ask and he didn't say anything else.

Yay for filters kicking in!

"And maybe we'll have dinner tomorrow," Hiram said, giving Finn a small smile. "Just figure this out instead, okay?"

Finn nodded again as Rachel's dad walked away. It was more like one long nod and oh—shit. His mom was still sitting at the diner. He had no idea how long they'd been gone. It was kind of awkward, but he fished his phone out of his pocket and shot off a one-handed message to his mom. _Idk what's wrong. Might be a while. Will call later._

He didn't bother putting the phone back in his pocket. He had no reason to believe Rachel had any idea what was actually going on around her.

"Rach," he tried again. He kissed her forehead and breathed and that seemed to be the contact that woke her up. She pulled her head away from his shoulder and looked at his face and she was sure from the look on his face that she was a total mess. She tried to push herself away from him, but his arms were holding on and they weren't letting go.

And she thought that maybe this was part of going slow, too. She needed to talk to him. She needed to tell him about things that had happened while they were still friends but she hadn't mentioned before because they were just…some things were too much for 'just friends' to talk about. But now she was surrounded with his family issues and it didn't seem fair, but maybe she should surround him with hers, too.

"I'm bad at communication," she said simply.

He raised his eyebrows and looked at her. "_You_?" He asked. And even though he wasn't laughing, he kind of choked out the word. "No you aren't."

He seemed to consider his stance on this for a minute.

"Okay, sometimes I think we don't talk about really important stuff that well. We're good with the 'hi, how was your weekend' and 'do you have summer plans' kind of stuff. I know things about you like you secretly like grape slushies—just for drinking, not for throwing—and you don't wear socks if it's going to be sunny outside because you like flip flops in the summer." He sighed. "But we're still figuring out all that secret kind of stuff, aren't we? Like the _real _stuff."

She looked over his face and nodded. "Yeah, and I left out a lot of real stuff at regionals."

His heart that was beating so hard while he was looking for her started up again. He was kind of afraid maybe, if it was from that long ago, well maybe he _had_ done something.

"Mercedes told everyone what happened when we were spying on Vocal Adrenaline," she said quietly, straight out. "That Shelby Corcoran is my mother."

And while it kind of took the sting out of it, his heart didn't slow down. It wasn't him—but it was still something big. He didn't know how good he would be at something big. He nodded.

"Well, I invited her to come co-direct New Directions because I wanted the opportunity to learn from her. She's a gifted performer and…" she trailed off. "When me and Mercedes and Quinn went on that spying trip, she pulled a Funny Girl song out of her back pocket to inspire Vocal Adrenaline during their rehearsal."

He frowned. He swore, would swear, he'd been paying attention for a lot longer than the last few minutes. "And that's where you got the song you did for sectionals, right? Isn't it from Funny Girl?"

She pulled back a little bit and her hand rested on his cheek. He knew and remembered some of the _strangest_ things but it was usually in the sweetest ways. She nodded and licked her lips before she continued. "Yeah. She sang a different song, but it was a lot like that. I had been putting together pieces for a couple of weeks, but that was the one that finished the puzzle," she said. She allowed herself a deep breath and it wasn't even all that shaky.

Maybe she could do this—talk to him like he was her boyfriend. Her really real, wonderfully real boyfriend.

"So we had talked a couple of times. She helped me with my Lady Gaga costume and we eventually decided that we would take things really slow because it was strange."

He was watching her face carefully. Although she still looked sad and terrible and not exactly like herself, she didn't look like she was going to break that way again. He wondered if this would be a long story because Rachel was a story teller and she would stay composed until the end. She might show signs of weakness at the end. He had a feeling it didn't have a happy ending.

"So back to regionals, when she told me she was stepping down from Vocal Adrenaline to have a life and a family. And I invited her here instead. And she turned me down because she wants a baby, not me. She wants a brand new family instead."

"I know something about that—moms wanting brand new families."

"I know you do," she said. Her eyes were starting to tear up again and he rubbed at her back. She was still sitting in his lap. "You're so lucky, Finn. I hope your family works all this out because I have no doubt they will all be there for you and it will be wonderful. But I…well, I'm not going to have that. I won't ever have a mom the way I've wanted."

"But your dads…they're good, right?" He asked. He had missed _all of that_ in the post-baby-isn't-yours-and-Jesse-is-a-Rachel-egging-asshole drama. He desperately hoped there wasn't something else he was missing, or maybe even something else _she_ was missing. Missing a parent was a lot—he understood that too.

"They're the best," she confirmed. "But they're still guys. They can't sew and they can't teach me about makeup. They don't understand what happens when a girl's heart breaks or the joy I get when I hit a perfect high A. There are just some things only girls understand and I had hoped I would find my mom and have that someday. But I won't."

He nodded. _When a girl's heart breaks._ He had done that. _Jesse_ had done that. Finn really hoped he wouldn't do it again because then who would understand her? She needed him, even if she couldn't admit it. And it felt really, really good that she needed him and she was counting on him. And just like that, he had learned a little—a lot—about what was going on in Rachel's mind.

"Well, I have a great mom. Maybe you can borrow her sometimes," he said before giving her a lopsided smile.

"Maybe you should ask her that first. I doubt I've made a good impression on her."

He sighed and gathered her up against his chest for a hug. "Well, what was it you said to me yesterday? _I love you, so I'm sure she'll love you_."

"Girls—women—don't work that way most of the time, but I hope you're right," she said, the words lost in his shirt as she held on to him tight.

He held her there for a long time, probably at least an hour, until long after his legs were asleep and his mind was wandering. Okay, maybe the mind wandering happened within about ten seconds after she stopped talking. Or before she finished talking. Whichever. Once it wasn't about important stuff (like what was making her cry) he felt free to relax a bit.

She finally pulled away with a sniffle. "Oh no! We just left your mom sitting back there!" She finally said, scrambling to move off his lap.

He reached his hands behind them to help ease himself off the ground and felt the painful rush to his long-sleeping limbs. "No, I sent her a text. We're good." He reached out to take her hand. "I have an idea, c'mon."

He was off and running immediately, her taking three steps in time with his every one as he hurried back to his truck in the parking lot.

"Do you know what time it is?" She asked in confusion.

"Not a clue," he admitted. "I saw your dad, too. He said to take care of you now and we would do dinner another time."

He had realized by then that she was walking willingly enough with him and she might die if they didn't slow down, so he had eased into a slower gait to let her catch her breath.

"Wait…so all of this happened while I was…"

He just nodded and then dropped her hand so he could wrap his arm around her shoulders.

"I told you, I've got your back," he said simply.

She sighed and tucked into his side like she did sometimes while they were holding hands. He dropped a kiss on top of her head as they strolled up to his truck. He let go of her long enough to unlock the door and pull it open so she could get inside. He didn't miss the curious glance she shot his way before she smoothed the skirt underneath her legs and climbed into the seat.

He didn't answer it either. It felt kind of good to have her be wondering what in hell he was doing for a change (instead of it being the other way around because if there was one thing her mouth ran slower than, it was her plans).

They were at the lake following only a couple stops and about a half-dozen (ignored/dodged) questions from Rachel later. He asked her to send her dads a message and let them know she was okay. He said to send them his phone number if they had any other questions. His phone had stayed still in his pocket so he assumed they were okay with this.

He was using the knowledge he had of how Rachel worked. Yes he was still learning and yes this might turn into an epic fail, but he wanted to do something that would help her just relax and maybe it would help him relax too.

Rachel thought she knew where they were going, but it wasn't that long before they passed the bowling alley and were leaving town completely. It was that notice that prompted questions two through four, but the only answer for her questions was an adorably smiling, slightly half-assed glance out of the corner of his eye. During the last question, he took her hand too. She figured that meant he wasn't going to answer her and she sighed. She reached out and turned up the radio, but they were already far enough away from the radio tower that the signal was scratchy. She twisted her wrist to flip the knob off and then shifted in her seat to look at Finn.

"Shouldn't you be wearing your seatbelt?" He asked, turning his head more fully to watch her. "I mean, like, if we hit something you would probably just go flying and…"

"Thank you," she said simply. Her soft voice totally interrupted everything he was thinking and the intensity in her eyes earned a full glance, then a full smile from him. She really meant it. And it made him feel like… well—it was better than anything he'd felt quarterbacking the football team, that was for sure. All he could really do was smile back, and his smile refused to die as she turned and settled back into her seat, only a little closer to him on the bench.

They eventually made it to the spot on the bank of the lake that he was heading, and he handed her the blanket from the small back seat of the truck while he grabbed the lunch that had been one of his (top secret) stops.

Rachel watched him in action and couldn't hide the smile. She still felt awful—honestly, all the stuff with Shelby wasn't going to be shoved back down that easily—but it was a totally confusing mix of awful and then that little warm feeling whenever she was with Finn and they were just being quiet. She wanted to just be with him and be quiet for a while so the warmth would take over. Is this what people were talking about when they mentioned feeling "butterflies" for someone?

As she watched him and _felt_ his movements, even though he wasn't touching her. Butterflies—it must've been what all that was.

He took the blanket from her and spread it out not too far from the truck, then put the bags down on it. She was still standing kind of helplessly by the door, just watching him in action. The moments when she was still and he was moving, she kind of felt everything inside her rearranging, and it was a scary reordering for her. He was quickly becoming the most important thing in her life and she was more than a little nervous about it all. But at the same time, she _totally wasn't._

When he reached through the open window of the truck to turn on the radio, he pressed her right up against it and she caught that clean smell of him—mostly laundry soap and usually a little bit of food. Right now, he smelled like the root beer he'd been drinking in the car since their last stop. She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. She wanted to remember this kind of thing forever.

Music started up from the speakers and she tilted her head. Her ears always honed in on music and classified it somehow. This time, the only real classification was its unfamiliarity.

"What is this?" She asked. It wasn't unpleasant, it just wasn't…it wasn't the kind of stuff he normally listened to. Like, she could hear the words over the drums for one thing. And it had a more intricate melody.

He sighed and stood up before he smiled slyly. "I'm not sure. Mrs. Schuester gave me a mixed cd after she helped me with that glee assignment that was all wrong. She's kind of creepy and stares at me still when I'm at work but…" he trailed off and his shoulder twitched in what she knew was a non-committal shrug. "This song kind of makes me think of you. So what would say to dancing with me? I mean…since we don't get to dance in glee until the fall?"

_As we were driving, you turned your head around and looked right at me_

_You couldn't see the road and it was scaring me_

_How beautiful you are when you get crazy,_

'_Cause I have never felt so weak_

She smiled and reached out to take her hand. "Dancing to soulful music by the lake?"

His cheeks were a little pink and he ducked his head, looking at where their hands were tangled together, even as he pulled and the motion tugged her closer to him. "Yeah, well… what can I say? Maybe you're turning me into a girl or something."

She smiled widely and looked up at him. "Well, I like you the way you are. But this is certainly romantic and I'm not going to turn it down." Her eyebrows dented as she looked up at him. "How did you know what to do to make me feel so much better?"

_So maybe I would disappear without you_

_Maybe I would fall into the sky_

_But I'm in heaven orbiting around you and your pretty eyes_

_Your pretty eyes_

He finally ducked down and gave her a soft kiss. "Hmm, two things," he said as he backed away from the kiss. "First, after my dad died, my mom used to bring me here a lot. She said it made her feel better. I remember being here with her and playing at the lake whenever she wasn't at work, and I think she even brought me before I can remember it."

She really, really wanted to kiss him. Of course he understood the feeling that someone was missing from your life. And even if it wasn't someone you had ever really known, he knew how much it mattered that they were missing. He had felt before the way she felt now. So she wanted to kiss him, but more than that, she wanted to _hear _him.

"And second? It was _you_ so I figured music and dancing had better be involved somehow."

_We took the highway, the curves along the ocean, on a Friday_

_The sun was falling down and you were shining_

_The rhythm of the waves was keeping time as you sang_

_Maybe I would disappear without you_

_Maybe I would fall into the sky_

_But I'm in heaven orbiting around you and your pretty eyes_

_Your pretty eyes_

She tossed her head back and laughed, finally jumping up to wrap her arms around his neck as he stumbled against the awkward and sudden tackle. Once he fell backwards and she landed on top of him, she was in a much better position to kiss him. So she did.

_Look at all the stars up in the sky, they look alive_

_I wonder what's on the other side,_

_It's full of light._

She pulled back with a smile and just put her hands on his face, watching his eyes shine as she sang along with the now-familiar last verse of the schmaltzy song.

_Maybe I would disappear without you_

_Maybe I would fall into the sky_

_But it's heaven here just orbiting around you and your pretty eyes_

_Your pretty eyes_

_Maybe I would disappear without you_

_Maybe I would fall into the sky_

_But I'm in heaven orbiting around you and your pretty eyes_

_Your pretty eyes_

She barely got the last words out before he was kissing her again and she knew—he was the other thing she never knew she wanted. But in this case, it wasn't once she'd lost it that she realized it. And now that she knew, she would hold onto it as tightly as she could because she was certain she might disappear without him.


	4. Chapter 4

_**A/N: **__ This story was really only intended to be three parts, so here's the bonus. I got a little stuck here at the end, but I hope you enjoy it all the same. Thanks for reading and reviewing! _

_**Disclaimer:**__ I don't own Glee and no harm or infringement is intended._

* * *

**Guess Who's Coming to Dinner**

Rachel paced around her room a little. The weekend had kind of fallen apart without warning. Their idyllic summer had already been disturbed by an overwhelming number of family issues and she really wanted to get it back on track before it was too far out of control. Finn had agreed to come over this morning for brunch (she wasn't sure he'd actually been awake this early on Sunday in the entire time she'd known him) in exchange for her help moving him (back?) into Burt's house later on. She kind of thought he was maybe relishing the opportunity to exploit her for manual labor because she was the first girlfriend he'd had that didn't view Sunday as a 'day of rest' and maybe his only friend who didn't view it as a 'day of football'. Still, be that as it may, it made her want to smile.

They had agreed to go slowly with their relationship, and had also agreed that included not spending every waking moment together. They both had other obligations anyway—she had her regular full schedule of lessons only amped up to include the time she wasn't in school, plus a community play in Columbus with rehearsals starting at the beginning of July; he had his job at Sheets 'N Things and quite likely a second job per his agreement with his mom, as well as football camp later on. She also knew he had once planned to spend a substantial amount of his time video gaming with Puck, but she was pretty sure that had changed since he and Puck hadn't spoken at all since regionals. She didn't really see that changing anytime soon given that Finn had been sealed up tight as a drum on the subject of Quinn, Puck, and the baby. She also hadn't attempted to pry the lid off any of it because she almost didn't want to know. It would all come out eventually and as long as he kept putting one foot in front of the other, he would be fine and they would deal with when they got around to it.

As she paced the floor, wringing her hands, she realized she'd also forgotten to tell him a critical detail about her own issues. They had spent the whole afternoon and part of the evening down by the lake yesterday and it had been so nice. It was just the two of them and felt like it was just the two of them _in the whole world—_a lot like when they were on the stage for Glee. She had never wanted the feeling to end, but eventually it had to. He'd had to work last night at six and she had been so exhausted she fell asleep not long after he dropped her off. That had been a good thing because it kept her hovering dads from prying, in all their concern, into a situation she couldn't discuss with them.

It was the one thing that had made sense to her out of all the things Shelby said—not to tell her dads. She knew that Leroy, as an ACLU attorney, had carefully detailed every aspect of her formal adoption. The contract Shelby had knowingly signed had precluded any contact with Rachel prior to Rachel's eighteenth birthday and even afterward, Rachel was to be the only initiator. Shelby had knowingly violated both of those key terms, and Rachel had to imagine her fathers would not take that too kindly, especially if they found out how _hurtful_ the contact had ended up being. She didn't know if it had caused long-term damage, but she already knew her feelings about it weren't going to be easily resolved.

Finn knocked on the open door and frowned when he saw her. She wasn't crying, so that was some improvement over the day before. But she was pacing and had that _look_ on her face and it still sucked and he had no idea how to help her.

Her head shot up and she smiled a little as she saw him. "Hey, you."

"Hey," he said simply. He flickered a brief smile, but he was too worried about her to keep it up for long. "What's going on?"

"Close the door," she breathed, looking over his shoulder in a brief moment of paranoia to see if either of her dads had followed. She was reasonably sure they were occupied cooking breakfast, but she needed to tell him this quickly and quietly and in private.

He looked at her strangely. "I didn't think…I thought that wasn't cool."

"It'll just be for a minute," she promised. He nodded and turned to do as she had asked, pushing the door so softly it barely even made a clicking sound as the door latched.

She stepped toward him and took his hands in hers, not even bothering with the ceremony of an introductory kiss.

"I forgot to tell you something of the utmost importance yesterday," she said quickly.

He frowned. He could practically see her heartbeat jumping through her shirt and he really hoped she hadn't been that worried about this all night. Even if he'd been at stupid work, she should've sent him a message.

Like, you know_, heads up—my life is screwed up so now yours is, too_. Or something along those lines would've worked. Maybe she was going to tell him she couldn't actually be with him?

Great. Now he was freaking out just like her. Geez, she was under his skin.

"What…what?" He thought better of trying to shrug it off after he had started and put it _all_ into that second question, even if it was the same word.

"We can't talk about any of the Shelby-related things in front of my dads."

Well that wasn't what he was expecting. Relief crashed over him in a strong wave and he dropped onto her bed. "Oh, sure. Okay," he agreed and he licked his lips. He was all prepared to ask for more details because it didn't make sense that she was keeping something from them. Everything he had gathered about Rachel was that she didn't _do_ secrets; in part because she was a little bit of a loudmouth and in part because she was actually a _good_ person.

He was looking at her like she was crazy and had maybe violated everything he ever thought was true about her. He was almost suspicious. She felt like maybe she should explain. "I usually don't keep secrets, and I'm sorry for asking you to keep this one for me. There is a contract in place and Shelby violated it."

"So why protect her?"

Rachel sighed. "I think I'm just protecting myself. I don't want to talk about it anymore, you know? I just want to be done with the whole thing and my dads would _not_ let that go."

He nodded and looked up at her, where she had moved to stand right in front of him as he sat on the bed.

There was a quick tap on the door and then it flew open.

"I thought the door was staying _open," _Leroy Berry commented firmly.

"Sorry, Dad," Rachel said simply. "I was going to play Finn a song real quick and I didn't want to disturb you."

Rachel was usually super smart, but she didn't seem very in-tune with sarcasm, so she totally missed it. Finn caught all of it for her as her dad arched an eyebrow and spoke slowly. "That's what it looks like." His dark eyes shifted to Finn, masked with suspicion and something that made Finn feel like he should start defending himself even though he didn't do anything wrong. Then again, he usually didn't manage that very well when he spoke so he kept his mouth shut tight.

"Breakfast will be ready shortly," Mr. Berry said. He shifted his gaze to Finn. "Can I talk to you outside for minute?"

"Why is that necessary, Dad?" Rachel cut in immediately as Finn's eyes widened and his throat went dry.

"Because I said so," he added firmly. Rachel's annoyance was written all over her face and she scowled and folded her arms over her chest as she looked back and forth between the two men.

Finn reached out and touched her arm softly. "It's okay. I think." He stood and squeezed past her, making sure his hand gave her arm a little squeeze. It was the closest he would get to a hug or a kiss while her dad was watching with fire in his eyes. Leroy Berry turned to walk away from the room and Finn followed closely behind.

Maybe the most intimidating thing about this dad was his height. Finn usually felt better towering over everybody, but in this case her dad was only about two inches shorter than him and he seemed to walk and carry himself drawn up to his full height instead of in a slouch like everybody else. Finn took a deep breath and tucked his hands into his pockets as he realized the dad wasn't stopping until he was in a neat room with a king-sized bed. Leroy turned to close the door and then looked at Finn expectantly.

Was this _their_ bedroom? Like, her dads private space where they…spent time and did stuff? That was super uncomfortable. He was barely getting comfortable sitting in Rachel's room because he was pretty sure that was where she'd "spent time" with Jesse and… right, he just barely even wanted to sit on her bed and he was pretty sure she'd changed her sheets. He would have to check and make sure if her dads ever said it was okay to close the door because—just gross.

Was being the world's biggest jerk, like, something he could _pick up_? Would it be bad to ask Rachel to get a new bed? Maybe he could hook her up with some new sheets and blankets at least, just to be on the safe side. He wanted to be done being a jerk to her.

Maybe there was such a thing as a fear of bedrooms and maybe he had it. Maybe he should just stay out of bedrooms—like hers, her dads…

Mr. Berry's quiet question cut in before he could think any further.

"Do you know what's going on with Rachel?"

_Crap. Double crap. _

"What…what do you mean?" Finn stuttered.

"Well, Hiram told me he saw you two outside the Temple yesterday afternoon and she was quite upset. I would assume she told you _why_ she's upset."

Thinking fast wasn't Finn's specialty and he knew this. He also knew that he couldn't just blab the one secret Rachel had really ever asked him to keep. Was there any way he could avoid spilling when her dad was looking at him all bad-cop that way? His arms were folded, and Finn knew from being around Puck that's how people with arm muscles tried to seem bad ass.

"Yeah, I know why she was so upset," Finn admitted, avoiding eye contact with _the arms of death_.

"What upset her so much she needed to get out of town for the day? She was gone from a lot of our typical family time yesterday. I hope there was nothing _serious_ going on—that we, as her fathers, would need to know about."

Finn sighed and looked at him, and looking at his face was so much worse than avoiding staring at the arms. "Look, she asked me not to talk about it with anyone else." He tucked his hands in his pockets and then looked at her dad and realized that _this one_ was the lawyer. Or were they both lawyers?

And was _double crap_ the absolute highest you could go? Or was there a _triple crap _that was somewhere beyond supremely screwed? Because judging by the look on Leroy Berry's face, whatever he had said just a second ago wasn't the best thing that ever came out of his mouth.

"Excuse me?" The elder man's arms folded crossly against his chest and he drew himself up a little taller.

"Look, sir, I know you're worried about your daughter. I'm worried about her too, but I don't think I can tell you why without starting a huge fight and losing a lot of trust she has in me. I don't wanna do that because it would just make everything worse, wouldn't it? She should be able to trust me." _As long as I don't catch any leftover jerk from her sheets or something_.

Leroy stared the boy down. He really hated his daughter getting older. It wasn't like he could bully private information about her out of her boyfriend without alienating them both and he definitely didn't want to do that.

No, he was thinking the rule of thumb with daughter's boyfriends would be to keep them close, kind of like you would with your enemies.

"Just tell me…it's not…something _serious_ is it?"

Finn eyed Leroy evenly. "No. She'll be fine."

"And it's not something that would make me want to hurt you, is it?"

"No," Finn said simply. "I didn't do anything…yet. I'm trying not to mess up or be a jerk or anything."

Leroy nodded. "Okay, Finn. Thanks."

Finn felt like maybe he could breathe out. And maybe he wouldn't throw up. He was not cut out to date a girl with two dads. So why was it that the coolest girl in the world, the one he had fallen in love with, _did_ have two dads and one of them was super scary? Well…the other one was, too. Okay, so she had two scary dads and everyone kept acting like he should be scared of _Rachel_ because of all the dramatics or something. No, she was easy to handle compared with this kind of stuff.

His hands were still buried in his jeans pockets as he walked back into Rachel's room where she was sitting on the bed. Her eyes kind of looked like she was wishing he was on a leash and she could wish-pull him back into the room. As soon as she saw him, she jumped up.

"I'm so sorry," she said simply. "Is he making you leave?"

"What?" Finn asked in confusion. "No. He wasn't mad the door was closed. He wanted to know what's going on with you."

Her eyes got huge. "What did you say?"

"Drugs," he said simply.

"Not amusing," she said.

"I just told him you didn't want me to talk about it with anyone," he said simply.

She sighed. "Well that's just going to lead to more questions. Thanks, though." He just nodded and watched her until she let out a deep breath and collapsed against him. "Let's go get brunch over with, shall we?"

* * *

Rachel's parents had a tradition of attending either a movie or a play as a family of three every Sunday. It was his understanding there was no flexibility in this tradition, so once their brunch was done they had parted and agreed she would come to his house afterward. In a way he was glad because it gave him some downtime to talk to his mom (who had all day off from work on Sundays). Plus, it wasn't like he actually expected Rachel to help him _move _anyway_._ That seemed like kind of a douchey thing to expect from your girlfriend when she was tiny, even though she seemed like she could move mountains with just sheer will.

He'd now been moving stuff back over for a little more than two hours since his little truck would only carry so much at a time, but now he was done. His plan was to just pull up a chair in the kitchen and chat with his mom while he waited for Rachel to show.

Carole was so excited at the prospect of Finn moving home that she hadn't stopped cooking all morning. His eyes got really big when he got back from the huge brunch—Rachel's parents had _way_ overfigured for even Finn's appetite and that was saying something—and saw a Tupperware container full of his favorite cookies (snickerdoodles), an apple pie just set out to cool, a pan of brownies, and the smell of something else from the oven that was unidentifiable given the sheer volume of stuff in front of him already.

"Let me guess. You're happy I'm coming home," Finn said in a dry voice as he took in the sheer madness of the kitchen.

His mom gasped a little bit and then ran over to give him a huge hug.

"Maybe a little," she said simply. She pulled away and he didn't miss the fact that she sniffled. "How was brunch with Rachel's dads?" She asked slowly. She glanced over her shoulder at him as she moved back into her spot at the stove.

"I think they might've had less food than we do," he teased lightly as he took it all in. "Which is saying a lot because I'm _still_ not hungry."

Carole turned around fully to face him with a smirk. "I think that's the first time I've ever heard you say those words in that order."

"I know," he said appreciatively. "And I didn't expect much from brunch because Rachel and one of her dads are vegan plus they do the whole kosher and Jewish thing…but yeah. Her other dad? Eats everything. And I think he wanted someone to share it with. Once he got done trying to scare me, he tried another way to make me puke."

"Scare you?"

"Dads of girls I'm dating are scary. And she has _two_, mom. Seriously. Two dads? It's twice as scary."

Carole let out a huge laugh. "Well, I'm sure if you two date for a long time, I'll get to meet them eventually."

Finn shrugged and reached out for a cookie. "Yeah, probably."

"So it's _really_ going that well?" Carole asked. Apparently she was at a good stopping place with all the cooking because she moved to the chair across from him. "What was the deal yesterday, then? I thought for sure you two had a fight or something."

He sighed. It was her dads that Rachel had specifically banned telling about anything, but…well…it didn't feel right to tell his mom about it, either. Eventually, all parents seemed to end up in a big, talky circle. "No. I'm trying really hard, mom. She's special."

She smiled. "I'll agree to that." It hurt her heart just a little to think that maybe she was slowly being edged out of her son's life by a girl. She had thought she was losing him when Quinn came home pregnant, but…Rachel had her eyes on the future. And as glad as Carole was that Finn seemed to be thinking that direction, it was definitely going to take some getting used to and some patience to accept.

"She just…sometimes she needs a mom. She doesn't have a lot of friends, a lot of_ girls_ around and…not that she doesn't love her dads, but sometimes she just needs another girl." Finn shrugged and chewed his bite of cookie before he continued. "Would it be okay if I told her she could borrow you sometimes?"

It knocked the wind out of her a little bit, how unexpectedly sweet this boy could be sometimes. Before she could say anything, though, he continued.

"I kind of already offered but she told me I should ask you first. She's afraid you don't like her."

Carole tilted her head to the side. "Why would she think that?"

He shrugged. "I dunno," he mumbled casually. He played with the half a cookie that was still in his hand and he was _really_ not hungry. It felt like an accomplishment. He was _finally_ full. He thought maybe Rachel's dads deserved one of her gold stars or something. "When I was nervous about meeting her dads, she said they would love me because she loved me. And when she said she didn't think you liked her, I told her that if I love her, you'd love her. She just said girls don't work like that."

Carole wanted to smile, but she just blinked. "Love? You love her?"

"Yeah," he whispered. "All the way. For real."

"Isn't that kind of fast, Finn?"

"Well…not really. It's just that I stopped arguing with it and she stopped arguing with it and… don't you like her?"

Carole looked at him openly. She didn't know how to be anything besides honest with him. There was something about his face that just made her speak her exact mind all the time. "I don't know her," she started with a shrug. "She seems kind of abrasive but…but I can tell she's good for you. It reminds me of me and your dad, actually. And in some ways, that makes me very nervous."

"Me too," he said slowly. He was still looking at the cookie instead of at her face, but his voice softened a little on the admission. "We're going really slow, I swear we are."

Carole nodded. She was pretty sure she understood exactly what he meant, and it was a huge relief to her. Not that she wanted to know, but…she just wanted to know there was nothing to know. "Good. You have all the time in the world, honey. As much as I loved your dad and as much as I love you…it all could've waited a little longer."

Finn sighed. "Yeah, well…Rachel has plans. I don't want to mess all that up for her."

She laughed. "She _does_ seem pretty focused and direct and all that. Just don't forget that you should have plans, too. The trick is figuring out what is worth compromising and what isn't. Sometimes it takes your whole lifetime to learn that."

The doorbell rang through the house and Finn visibly startled. Carole laughed.

"Yeah, it's different than our old one, isn't it? It takes some getting used to."

He laughed. "Yeah." He moved through the kitchen, along the tiled pathway, and to the entry. The layout of the new house would take a while to get used to, too. He absently wondered how many times he would actually bump into walls if he were moving out of habit.

He could see Rachel smiling, her face repeated and stretched different directions through the textured glass on the front door. It prompted his own smile before he yanked the door open.

"Hey..." he said slowly. "Weren't you supposed to text me that you were on your way?"

She bit her lip and he wanted to kiss the spot her teeth tugged on, but he knew his mom was like _right_ _there_ so he didn't. "Sorry. I guess I forgot. My dads just dropped me straight here, though." She held up a canvas grocery bag. "And they sent dessert."

He reached out to take the bag from her and okay, maybe he brushed his hand against hers a little longer than was necessary. So? He could do stuff like that and it was okay.

The bag was heavy and he peeked inside. It looked like a two-liter bottle of root beer and a pint of ice cream. Root beer floats? _Awesome. _(Until closer inspection revealed _light_ root beer and _soy _ice cream. _That's not an actual root beer float, Rachel. Thanks for trying, though.) _He groaned a little bit anyway. His stomach, like, literally hurt.

"Maybe we'll just have dessert for dinner."

While he was looking in the bag, Rachel had stepped inside and she was bent over to unhook the strap on her sandals so she could step out her shoes. She now stood up and her confusion was written all over her face.

"C'mon. You and my mom will have something to talk about, I'm sure."

He took her hand with his free one and lightly tugged her toward the kitchen. Her jaw dropped a little when she saw the _volume_ of treats. Not to mention Carole was just pulling some banana bread out of the oven. Rachel looked over at Finn doubtfully.

"How much of this have you eaten? Because if you're keeping up with _that_ much baking, I might have my work cut out for me." She bit her lip again, and he had to fight not to just stoop down and kiss her _again_.

"I'm too full to eat," he admitted. It wasn't without some pain.

Rachel gave a little chuckle. "My dads will appreciate that bit of information."

"Rachel, I was actually just going to get started on dinner. Would you mind helping me in here for a bit?" Carole asked.

Rachel looked to Finn, still gnawing at her lip with uncharacteristic uncertainty. He couldn't talk himself out of kissing her a third time in under five minutes because he just wasn't super human like that, so he dropped down and placed a soft kiss on her softer mouth. But no tongue—his mom was right there.

"Go ahead. I'm just going to hook up my X-Box," he prompted.

She turned to Carole and nodded, her smile a little more confident and a lot more bright. "Let me just wash my hands."

They settled into an easy groove, the two women, and as Finn saw Rachel start chopping vegetables, he felt relaxed enough about the whole thing to actually go down the stairs and to his basement bedroom.

Once he was gone, Carole looked at Rachel ruefully. "I'm sorry. I didn't realize you didn't eat meat." Her gaze shifted back to the chicken she had been preparing for a chicken pot pie.

Rachel gave a shrug even as she lightly pressed down on the knife, flicking her wrist to slice the carrot in front of her with unsurprisingly typical dexterity. "That's okay. I'll figure something out. I think we ate enough at brunch to hold me over, honestly."

Carole smiled a little as she ducked her head and continued dicing. "Finn said he was _full_. And he stopped eating a _cookie_. I think your dads might deserve a medal. I'm not sure he's ever actually stopped eating since he turned fourteen."

Rachel laughed. "They _did_ get a little carried away. Only one of my dads follows the same dietary restrictions I do; so my other dad tends to be quite pleased with the opportunity to cook for someone who appreciates it," she commented, her laughter still dangling in her amused voice. She stopped chopping for a moment and tilted her head. "I can't be positive, but I think he said something about needing to change into his 'fat pants' once they arrived back at home after dropping me off here."

Carole nodded appreciatively. "Maybe that's why Finn always wears basketball shorts. I've never understood that."

Rachel's responding laugh was so loud and so infectious that Carole found herself laughing, too.

"I guess I never really thought about that, but it _does_ make sense. And I think the first thing he does once we're finished performing is untuck his shirt and lose his belt," Rachel commented eventually. "Getting on the bus after sectionals was a little like I imagine walking into a locker room would be; Finn wasn't the only one doing that."

"That's what Burt does immediately after work, too. Maybe it's a guy thing?" Carole suggested.

Rachel's shoulder fell out of her responding shrug as she turned back to the cutting board. "I would assume so."

"Are your dads the same way?"

The question was tossed out casually enough, just idle chit-chat, but it took Rachel a long time to answer. When she did respond, her voice was a little more subdued. "Well…I'm not actually sure. They, um, they're gone a lot with work. Now that I can drive myself to school and my lessons…the only time I'm really home with them is on Friday nights for Shabbat. I'm not sure what they do when they get home from work."

Carole put down the knife she was using and turned to face Rachel head on. "Finn told me that he offered me out as a substitute mother for you," she said. The words were blunt, but her tone was extremely cautious. Rachel's chopping slowed and then stopped, but she refused to turn and face the other woman. Carole continued anyway and her tone dropped. "I know all about being alone most of the time, and I know how lonely it is. I'm willing to try treating you as my daughter, but…but really you should just make yourself at home and part of our whole family. You don't have to be alone all the time."

Rachel finally dragged her eyes up to meet Carole's. The chocolate brown was floating and Rachel could barely manage her reply. "Thank you."

It wasn't even uncomfortable as Carole slipped an arm around the smaller girl and gave her a little squeeze around the shoulders. She stepped back over to her own cutting board, the sink sitting between the two, and the silence between them wasn't uncomfortable, either. That didn't mean Carole had nothing else to say.

Once she was done cutting chicken, she turned to dump the small cubes into a skillet. "Oh, and Rachel?"

"Yeah?"

"When my son is the boy you have problems with, let me know."

Rachel didn't respond, but her smile kind of did it for her and she realized one very small and very big thing: she could _definitely _get used to this—all of it.

Finn, for his part, resisted the urge to respond from where he stood undiscovered just inside the open doorway of the kitchen. And even though he wasn't totally sure he liked the idea of them _ganging up_ on him, he liked the idea that Rachel was there. Sure, he heard his mom's sort-of threat, but even more than that he saw something he liked a lot. Rachel was smiling. Rachel was happy.

She was _his._ He could _definitely_ get used to that idea. It made _him_ happy.


End file.
